Knife-weilding murderers, buxom teens fleeing for their lives, the undead limping across streets. These images are synonymous with horror movies. Go behind-the-scenes with filmmaker greats as they reveal their inspirations for some of the most disturbingly gruesome films that have emerged on screen. Includes excerpts from classic horror films. 2000. 71 min. Media Resources Center: DVD 2417

American nightmare: essays on the horror film

Andrew Britton ... [et al.]. Toronto: Festival of Festivals, c1979.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 .A4

The American nightmare [videorecording]

Knife-weilding murderers, buxom teens fleeing for their lives, the undead limping across streets. These images are synonymous with horror movies. Go behind-the-scenes with filmmaker greats as they reveal their inspirations for some of the most disturbingly gruesome films that have emerged on screen. Includes excerpts from classic horror films. DVD 2417

Ancuta, Katarzyna.

Where angels fear to hover : between the gothic disease and the meataphysics of horror
Frankfurt am Main ; New York : P. Lang, c2005.

MAIN: PN3435 .A49 2005

Andriano, Joseph

Immortal monster: the mythological evolution of the fantastic beast in modern fiction and film / Joseph D. Andriano. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. Series title: Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy no. 78.

UCB Main PS374.M544 A53 1999

Attack of the monster movie makers: interviews with 20 genre giants

By Tom Weaver; research associates, Michael and John Brunas. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, c1994.

This fascinating study relates horror film to recent interpretations of the body and the self, drawing from feminist film theory, psychoanalytic theory, cultural criticism and gender studies. Applying the term "horror" broadly, this work includes discussions of black comedy, thrillers, science fiction, and slasher films. Central to this book is the view of horror as a modern iconography and "discourse" of the body. Badley's thought-provoking analysis of films by directors Tim Burton, Tobe Hooper, George Romero, Ridley Scott, Brian De Palma, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Jonathan Demme, and Clive Barker, will be of interest to both scholars and students. [publisher description]

Becker, Susanne.

Gothic forms of feminine fictions / Susanne Becker. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press; New York: Distributed in the USA by St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror film / Harry M. Benshoff. Manchester [England]; New York: Manchester University Press; New York: Distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1997. Series title: Inside popular film.

The return of the repressed: gothic horror from The Castle of Otranto to Alien / Valdine Clemens. Albany: State University of New York Press, c1999. Series title: SUNY series in psychoanalysis and culture.

UCB Main PR830.T3 C59 1999

Clover, Carol J.

"The eye of horror." In: Viewing positions: ways of seeing film / edited, and with an introduction by Linda Williams. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, c1995. Rutgers depth of field series.

"Culture in the Hall of Mirrors: Film and Fiction and Fiction and Film." In: A dark night's dreaming : contemporary American horror fiction / edited by Tony Magistrale, Michael A. Morrison.
Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina Press, c1996.

Stephen King goes to Hollywood: a lavishly illustrated guide to all the films based on Stephen King's fiction / written by Jeff Conner. New York: New American Library, c1987.

UCB Main PS3561.I483 Z62871 1987

Connolly, Angela

"Jung in the twilight zone: The psychological functions of the horror film." In: Psyche and the arts : Jungian approaches to music, architecture, literature, film and painting / edited by Susan Rowland.
London ; New York : Routledge, 2008.

Dark dreams: a psychological history of the modern horror film / Charles Derry. South Brunswick: A. S. Barnes, c1977.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 D38

UCB Moffitt PN1995.9.H6 D38

Dika, Vera

Games of terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the films of the stalker cycle / Vera Dika. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, c1990.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 D48 1990

UCB Moffitt PN1995.9.H6 D48 1990

Dillard R.H.W.

"Even a man who is pure at heart: poetry and danger in the horror film." In: Man and the movies. Edited by W. R. Robinson with assistance from George Garrett. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press [1967]

Main Stack PN1995.M27 NRLF #: B 3 567 797

Dixon, Wheeler W.

"The limits of cinematic spectacle: considerations on the horror film." In: The transparency of spectacle: meditations on the moving image / Wheeler Winston Dixon. Albany: State University of New York Press, c1998. SUNY series in postmodern culture.

A journey into darkness: the art of James Whale's horror films / Reed Ellis. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Series title: Dissertations on film 1980.

UCB Moffitt PN1998.A3 .W4774 1980

Erens, Patricia Brett.

"The Stepfather: Father as Monster in the Contemporary Horror Film." In: The dread of difference: gender and the horror film / edited by Barry Keith Grant. 1st ed. pp: 352-63. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Texas film studies series.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.D74 1996

Eros in the mind's eye: sexuality and the fantastic in art and film /

Edited by Donald Palumbo. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. Series title: Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy no. 21.

Contents: The silents: unheard punchlines and subtitled screams -- The thirties: old dark houses and gorilla suits -- The forties: killer zombies and comedy teams -- The fifties: elderly monsters and black humor -- The sixties: gothic castles and cleavage galore -- The seventies: naked vampires and young Frankensteins -- The eighties: American werewolves and toxic avengers -- The nineties: screams and cemetery men -- Comedy-horror in the new millennium.

Contents: Introduction: masculinity and the gothic -- The one-sex body in a two-sex world -- The possession of the male body -- Modern science and the obliteration of the feminine -- The animal within: Darwinism and masculinity -- The animal without -- The male lover -- (Re)visioning the Gothic: Jane Campion's film The piano.

Hendershot, Cynthia.

I was a Cold War monster: horror films, eroticism, and the Cold War imagination Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, c2001.

Edited by Steffen Hantke. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.H674 2004

Contents: Horror film and the apparatus of cinema / Steffen Hantke -- Spectral vampires: Nosferatu in the light of new technology / Stacey Abbott -- Imaging the abject: the ideological use of the dissolve / Claire Sisko King -- The camera's eye: peeping tom and technological perversion / Catherine Zimmer -- A film is being beaten: notes on the shock cut and the material violence of horror / David S. Diffrient -- The horror "event" movie: The mummy, Hannibal, and Signs / Philip L. Simpson -- "There is only one": the restoration of the repressed in The exorcist: the version you've never seen! / Michael Arnzen -- Proliferating horrors: survival horror and the resident evil franchise / Richard J. Hand -- Simulating torture, documenting horror: the technology of "nonfiction filmmaking" in Devil's experiment and Flowers of flesh and blood / Jay McRoy -- A nasty situation: social panics, transnationalism, and the video Nasty / James Kendrick -- From SBIGs to Mildred's inverse law of trailers: skewing the narrative of horror fan consumption / K.A. Laity -- Horror meets noir: the evolution of cinematic style, 1931-1958 / Blair Davis -- Queering consumption and production in What ever happened to Baby Jane? / Lorena Russell.

Rational fears: American horror in the 1950s / Mark Jancovich. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press; New York, NY, USA: Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1996.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 J37 1996

Jensen, Paul M.

The men who made the monsters / Paul M. Jensen. New York: Twayne; London: Prentice Hall International, c1996. Series title: Twayne's filmmakers series.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 J46 1996

UCB Moffitt PN1995.9.H6 J46 1996

Jones, E. Michael.

Monsters from the Id: the rise of horror in fiction and film / E. Michael Jones. Dallas, Tex: Spence Pub. Co., 2000.

"'Now playing everywhere' : Spanish horror film in the marketplace." In: Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre / edited by Jay Beck and Vicente Rodríguez Ortega.
Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press : Distributed in the U.S. exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

"'Beyond the Veil of the Flesh': Cronenberg and the Disembodiment of Horror." In: The dread of difference: gender and the horror film / edited by Barry Keith Grant. pp: 231-52 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Texas film studies series.

"You better watch out: Christmas in the horror film." In: Christmas at the movies: images of Christmas in American, British and European cinema / edited by Mark Connelly. London; New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers; New York, NY: Distributed in the United States and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Recreational terror: women and the pleasures of horror film viewing / Isabel Cristina Pinedo. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997. Series title: SUNY series, Interruptions -- Border testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s.

Devouring whirlwind: terror and transcendence in the cinema of cruelty / Will H. Rockett. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Series title: Contributions to the study of popular culture no. 21.

UCB Main PN1995.9.C7 R641 1988

UCB Moffitt PN1995.9.C7 R64 1988

What is the attraction of horror films? Do they have any socially redeeming features? Rockett offers some surprising and provocative answers to these questions in his analysis of the cinema of cruelty. He looks at film as a means of expressing the dark side of human nature and examines the essential ingredients that go into the making of a horror film, the variations that are found within the genre, and the links between the best horror cinema and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. Echoing Artaud, Rockett argues that human beings are attracted to horror in films because of an unconscious craving for a reality in which the demonic supernatural acts as a "living whirlwind," "devouring the darkness" and bringing viewers closer to the transcendence they are actually seeking. The final chapter shows how the finest works in the horror genre achieve this underlying aim. [publisher description]

Royer, Carl.

The spectacle of isolation in horror films : dark parades
New York : Haworth Press, c2005.

"Same As It Ever Was: Innovation and Exhaustion in the Horror and Science Fiction Films of the
1990s." In: Film genre 2000: new critical essays / edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon. pp: 111-23. Albany: State University of New York Press, c2000. SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video.

Contents: "An attempt to 'commercialize vice'": origins of the exploitation film -- "A hodge-podge of cuttings and splicings": the mode of production and the style of classical exploitation films -- "You gotta tell'em to sell'em": distribution, advertising, and exhibition of exploitation films -- "Thoroughly vile and disgusting": the exploitation film and censorship -- "No false modesty, no old-fashioned taboos": the sex hygiene film -- "The monster that caters to thrill-hungry youth": the drug film -- "Timely as today's front page": vice, exotic, and atrocity films -- "They wear no clothes!": nudist and burlesque films -- Conclusion: the end of classical exploitation.

Songs of love and death: the classical American horror film of the 1930s / Michael Sevastakis. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Series title: Contributions to the study of popular culture no. 37.

UCB Main PN1995.9.H6 S46 1993

UCB Moffitt PN1995.9.H6 S46 1993

The Shape of rage: the films of David Cronenberg

Edited by Piers Handling. Toronto, Canada: General Pub. Co.; New York, U.S.A.: New York Zoetrope, 1983.

More things than are dreamt of: masterpieces of supernatural horror, from Mary Shelley to Stephen King, in literature and film / James Ursini and Alain Silver; preface by William Peter Blatty. 1st Limelight ed. New York: Limelight Editions, 1994.

It came from Weaver five: interviews with 20 zany, glib, and earnest moviemakers in the SF and horror traditions of the thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties / by Tom Weaver. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., c1996.

"Splatter film was first introduced in George Romero's neo-classic 'Night of the Living Dead' released in 1968. This film and others of its kind use gore and graphic violence to show that evil is outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply. Splatter films differ from typical horror films because they revel in the special effects of gore as an artform. They are part of postmodern art and depict postmodern condition as a vehicle for cultural transformation." [Magazine Index]

Austin, Guy

"Vampirism, gender wars and the 'Final Girl': French fantasy film in the early Seventies." French Cultural Studies 1996; 7; 321

"The thrill of chills." (horror movies) Current Health 2 v18, n7 (March, 1992):24 (2 pages).
ve teenagers a temporary feeling of loss of control which may be healthy at that time in their lives. Long-term viewing can produce violent or aggressive behavior. Warning signs of when a teen may be losing perspective are given.

Old monster films are better than most of the current offerings of the genre. Too much realism tends to spoil the story. 'Interview with the Vampire,' 'Ed Wood,' 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' and other films are discussed.

Americans are still fascinated with monsters and horror even after the World Trade Center tragedy brought real horror to life. In horror films and stories, good eventually triumphs over the monster. The fascination with horror is also discussed in a spiritual context.

Discusses how social politics and ideology infiltrate genres and influence authorship practices in hippie horror films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Definition of horror film according to the essay "An Introduction to the American Horror Film," by Robin Wood; Similarity of the social role of the horror film to the Freudian understanding of dreams; Views of director Wes Craven on horror films that are centered around the conceit of mirrored families.

"Focuses on 2 interrelated changes in horror films of the last 25 years: a tendency for the "horror" to become internalized; and the use of what the author calls "bubbling flesh" to signify the internalized horror. Taking two films, the 1958 The Fly and its 1986 remake, and treating them as (paranoid) fantasies, the author explores what he takes to be the unconscious meanings of these changes. Although both films present oedipal as well as preoedipal conflicts, and although both employ paranoid mechanisms of negation and projection of an unacceptable wish, the earlier film also makes greater use of repression to keep the preoedipal wishes farther from consciousness. The earlier film is also more successful in its projection: In the later film the projective mechanisms fail and the projected returns to its original locus. The particular unacceptable wish is a radically passive wish for merger with the mother, a merger wish so radical that it can be seen in terms of H. Guntrip's (1969) "return to the womb" wishes, and so passive that it can be seen as a nearly pure form of Freud's death drive. The differences between the 2 films are associated with societal changes in the past decades, and especially with traditionally conceived gender role changes." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

Modern filmmakers' interest with monsters in the films 'Interview with the Vampire' and 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein' and their treatment of the subject fall short of audience expectations. Social taboos are introduced in the films but disappoint because of the indirect approach to the themes.

"Pain is crucial to how audiences relate to the horror film, but not as a vehicle through which audiences can sympathize with the monster's victims. Rather, it is the monster's pain that dictates audience positioning in the horror film. Horror films present two contrasting modes of monstrous suffering: masochism and menstruation. These two options determine audience identification in gendered terms. Masochism is a vital aspect of the construction of male monsters, who initiate their sadistic rampages with acts of self-mutilation. The female counterpart to the act of self-mutilation is menstruation, a narrative event that puts the viewer in an uncomfortably close relationship to the female monster. These differences between the masochistic and menstrual plots of the genre expose an underlying conservatism in a potentially radical genre." [Art Index]

"In Skin Shows, her study of gothic horror, Judith Halberstam argues that '[m]onsters are meaning machines'. Narratives about monsters create meaning by defining the border between normal and monstrous desire. This essay offers a close reading of horror films from three very different periods of the genre's history-- Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Haunting, and Scream--to demonstrate how these films represent queer desire as monstrous, disruptive and violent. Reading these cinematic representations alongside Christian discourses of sodomy demonstrates that the study of religion and the study of popular culture can inform each other, that theological meaning can be found in the artifacts of popular culture and that these artefacts can only be fully understood by attending to their theological meanings. The essay concludes with suggestions regarding how such artifacts can be engaged to support queer political projects." [Ingenta]

Between 1958 and 1962, Castle became famous for the stunts he used to promote his low-budget horror films. They included insurance against causing 'death by fright,' glasses that caused the viewers to see 'ghosts' and electrical charges wired into theater seats. His classic 'The Tingler' is analysed.

"Comments on the current popularity of horror films, citing the success of "The Sixth Sense," "The Blair Witch Project," "The Haunting" and "Stigmata." Recalls some early horror pictures, such as the 1916 debut of Frankenstein in a 16-minute short, and the 1913 work "The Werewolf." Asserts that "The Exorcist" was a peak for the genre in 1972, as were the films featuring Freddy Krueger, Jason, and Michael Myers, and that horror was brought back to the limelight by the pop-cultural spin on its formula: "Scream." Contends that aside from "Scream" the formula seems to remain the same, offering "photogenic kids being knocked off by maniacs accompanied by loud music and endless false alarms." [International Index to the Performing Arts]

Script writer Ramsey Campbell describes his interest in reading horror stories during his early years and his eventual reproduction of such stories as scripts for feature films. Films such as 'Dracula,' 'Frankenstein' and 'Revenge of the Vampire' fascinated Campbell. The difficulties involved in making these films are described.

"Considers the obsession with serial murderers in recent American popular culture, including the continuing mythologizing of the English killer Jack the Ripper, the celebration and condemnation of mass murderer Ted Bundy, the stories associated with the "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz, and the success of such horror films as "Nightmare on Elm Street."" [America: History and Life]

"American youth culture saw the rise of horror films with classic monsters during the late 1950s. Popular adaptations of Gothic fiction by Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allen Poe were reflective of adolescent interests and opinions. However, change did occur from terror to comedy with Rock 'n' roll music and its lyrics that resulted in youthful adaptation of horror themes. To adult listeners, these songs were silly and nonsense in nature." [Magazine Index]

Comparison of the work of Alice Jardine and Craig Owens on the connections between feminism and postmodernism. Relates these ideas to Sci-fi horror films, the nostalgia film, and 'the search for the mother'.

"Maintaining that some of the most terrifying realist horror offerings in cinema can be found in gangster movies, Don Diego suggests that the the iconic film gangster be included among the established American horror icons. Drawing on the example of Brian DePlama's 1983 version of "Scarface" and several other gangster films, Don Diego notes that their combination of suspence, horror, and mayhem that surpass many traditional horror films. She traces the use of stylized scenes of carnage in such films and dicusses the shared elements of the two genres. Similarities with horror can be seen in gangster films' use of violence, the horrific nature of mob activities, the portrayal of gangsters as subhuman, and audience's morbid fascination with the genre." [IIPA]

Research indicates that women and people whose emotions are easily aroused are most likely to be affected by scary films and television programs. Arousable people have longer fright reactions and more physiological responses.

"Horror films are not very enjoyable if the viewer believes that the fictions are only fictions and, thus, the monsters are not quite as frightening as they should be. These films present very little to reward the viewer's curiosity except for presenting grotesque figures, since most of the plots of these films are simple and oftentimes predictable. Perhaps one of the few ways to enjoy horror films is to allow them to recreate negative emotions of fear that are sometimes experienced in life." [Magazine Index]

Most experts agree that scare movies are not good for young children. Because most children younger than six cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy, they can be traumatized by realistic images of horrible, but fictitious events and creatures.

This bibliography of critical writing on horror filmmakers also includes directors and producers that have been recognized for their significant contribution to the genre. Entries subjectively take into account the cross-over of horror and science fiction.

"American horror films made during the 1980s and the 1990s are different from the classical horror and science fiction genres. These films specifically address the concerns and values of the affluent yuppie society that is caught in a period of recession. The evil characters in the horror movies are projections of subdued aspirations, like traditional monsters, and threaten materiality more than mortality. These movies also rely on the visual and narrative conventions of classic horror films. Films of both genres are compared and contrasted." [Magazine Index]

Guerrero, Edward.

"AIDS As Monster In Science Fiction And Horror Cinema." Journal of Popular Film and Television 1990 18(3): 86-93.

In the last decade, films such as The Thing (1982), Life Force (1985), and The Fly (1986) have used metaphors for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as their agents of terror.

Critic David J. Skal speaks on horror and monster films in a historical and cultural context.

Hantke, Steffen

"Consuming the Impossible Body: Horror Film and the Spectacle of Cinematic Special Effects."
Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres, vol. 20, pp. 66-79, 2006

Hantke, Steffen

"Academic Film Criticism, the Rhetoric of Crisis, and the Current State of American Horror Cinema: Thoughts on Canonicity and Academic Anxiety."
College Literature, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 191-202, October 2007

"The author discusses several horror films of the 1950s that used scenes of hypnosis as marketing gimmicks, such as "HypnoVista" in "Horrors of the Black Museum," "Psycho-Rama" in "My World Dies Screaming," "Hypno-Magic" in "The Hypnotic Eye," and "Percepto" in "The Tingler." One crucial component of 1950s horror was "the fear of the increasing top-down management of both economic and psychic life in rationalized, postwar America." A larger explanation includes the "complex interweaving of the aesthetic, technological, social, and economic histories of American film during the industry's precipitous and sustained decline in box-office attendance after the war." As the star system declined and younger audiences became over-familiar with genre conventions, production dropped and movies used outlandish plots and publicity stunts to draw attention. Advertising was perceived to be behind the times. Trailers grew in importance to campaigns, and the marketing began to reflect influences from the study of psychology. The characters and narrative techniques from several hypnosis horror films of the 1950s are discussed." [IIPA]

Heldreth, Leonard G.

"Festering in Thebes: Elements of Tragedy and Myth in Cronenberg's Films."
Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 1996
Winter-Spring, 15:2, 46-61.

Hendershot, Cyndy.

"The Cold War Horror Film: Taboo and Transgression in The Bad Seed, The
Fly, and Psycho." Journal of Popular Film and Television v29, n1 (Spring, 2001):21.

"Analyzes the interplay of taboo and transgression in three hithorror films from the hitCold hitWar period: Mervyn LeRoy's "The Bad Seed" (1956), Kurt Neumann's "The Fly" (1958), and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960). Examines these films via the theories of Georges Bataille, in whose works transgression is a desire created by the taboo itself." [IIPA]

Hendershot, Cyndy.

"Domesticity and horror in 'House of Usher' and 'Village of the Damned.'" Quarterly Review of Film and Video v17, n3 (Oct, 2000):221 (7 pages).

This article discusses the influence of sociological change on the portrayal of family in horror films of the fifties. Topics include the relationship between normality, Freudian psychology, and abnormal behavior.

"Articles on machinery and the 'faceless' killer in "The terminator"; Russ Meyer's spell at a mainstream production company (Twentieth Century-Fox) for "Beyond the valley of the dolls"; a history of the sex hygiene film; murderers in the US cinema before and after "The honeymoon killers"; and the Italian horror cinema exemplified by the work of Mario Bava and Dario Argento." [FIAF]

"A study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan titled 'Tale from the Screen: Enduring Fright Reactions to Scary Media,' suggests that the long-term effects of watching horror movies and television shows can linger into adulthood. Results showed that a large percentage of the study's participants reported a media fright reaction from childhood to adolescence. The results, researchers say, is enough to cause concern, especially for children since these effects are more serious than, for example, the need to use a night light." [Magazine Index]

"Four horror films that deal with the return of missing or dead American soldiers from the Vietnam War - Deathdream (1972), House (1986), Jacob's Ladder (1990), and Universal Soldier (1992) - are placed in political context and examined for representations of masculinity and family structures." [America: History and Life]

"Humphries extensively analyzes several horror films that depict serial killers and focuses on what he terms hitthe presence of an unquenchable "hitdeath hitdrive" that exists within each serial killer character and is enacted hitin each film. Drawing hitthe concept of hitthe "hitdeath hitdrive" from Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, Humphries also applies Jacques Lacan's concept of "jouissance" - hitthe human's need for greater and greater amounts of pleasure - and hitthe notion of an entity that represents a human's object of desire. Examining serial killer films such as "hitThe Hitcher," "Seven," and "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," Humphries illustrates how hitthe murderers hitin each film fuse their incessant hitdrive towards gruesome carnage with a search for hitthe ultimate object of their wrath; such a quest, he argues, is hitin actuality hitthe serial killer's quest for his own hitdeath." [IIPA]

"The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) finds it difficult to censor American horror movies. Many classic horror movies have been banned in UK due to their hardcore portrayal of death and violence. The British Board received a major threat due to the increase in videos in the 1980s, as previously banned movies were now easily made public through these videos. The release of the uncensored version of 'The Evil Dead' reveals the inability of the BBFC to censor horror movies." [Magazine Index]

"Joe Dante is a premier director of horror films who believes that such films allow a ritual conquering of fear by the audience. He has worked with Roger Corman, John Sayles and Steven Spielberg. Dante's latest movie 'Matinee' is a homage to the B-movies of the 1950s and early 1960s which used bug-eyed science fiction monsters. He sees much classic horror literature which has not been adequately portrayed on film yet." [Magazine Index]

Horror films are not attracting audiences as they once did, and industry experts point to the cyclical aspects of the genre as well as a recent spate of mediocre product. Upcoming films are discussed and sales statistics are given.

"The author examines the genre of horror films in the U.S. He states that the genre of horror films had evolved through the years. He points out that these days, many sophisticated 1980's moviegoers cannot even be scared by the numerous projectiles thrown at them by a demented killer in a movie. Moreover, the author explores Roger Munier's startling conception of horror films and examine a single illustrative example of the horror genre whose horror springs in part from a horror of film." [EBSCO]

"Watching Horror: A Gendered Look at Terrorism; or, Everything I Need to Know I
Learned in Psycho." Senses of Cinema: an Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious & Eclectic Discussion
of Cinema. 17:(no pagination). 2001 Nov-Dec

McCrillis, M. P.

"Lynching stephen king." (comparing Stephen King and David Lynch)(Critical Essay) World and I July 2003 v18 i7 p268 (5639 words)

" In a discussion of the connection between hitGothic literature and horror films, Morgan examines the importance of realistic and semi-realistic films that appeared in the 1980s and combined elements of the film noir and horror genres. He concentrates especially on Brian Hutton's "The First Deadly Sin" (1980), Brian DePalma's "Blowout" (1981), Richard Tuggle's "Tightrope" (1984), Alan Parker's "Angel heart" (1987), and Adrian Lyne's "Fatal Attraction" (1987). He maintains that all the films conflate crime and particularly noir conventions with hitgothic ones to produce a crossbreed form, one in which the protagonist becomes seemingly vulnerable and "descends into the dark night of the soul usually associated with horror invention."" [IIPA]

"Horror has literary, popular cultural and film appeal, but has not been included in the theoretical framework that encompasses tragedy, comedy and other major forms. There have been works on Gothic and its aesthetics and theory, one of the earliest being 'One the Pleasure derived from Objects of Terror' by Aiken and Barbauld, 1775. Gothic tales can be seen as closed systems, with little information on actual dates and locations. Horror does not give pleasure in real life, but horror as an art form can be experienced both as intellectual prception and as a bodily registration." [Magazine Index]

"Kendall Watson's theory of fiction as make-believe relies on a cognitive interpretation of fear as requiring an intentional object and a belief that it is dangerous. However, fear does not always have an intentional object, as shown by instinctive fears caused by falling, loud noises, sudden movements, excess novelty or contagion from the fears of others. Furthermore, fear need not involve belief that one is in danger. Fear may be felt for others who are in danger or may be stimulated by thinking about danger. The fear occasioned by horror movies involves sympathetic fear for the characters." [Magazine Index]

"Discusses the gender socialization of horror. The horror genre has continued to fascinate audiences through the combination of frightening plots with nonverbal elements. Horror films seem to tap an inner vein that is subliminal and emotional in nature. Increasingly, they have incorporated the ever-popular ingredients of violence and sex. In this chapter, the authors contend that they also fulfill important social and psychological functions. The evolution of the horror film and its early imagery is explored. Coping with fear is one of the most basic human emotions. Horror triggers vicarious fears. Not only can viewers derive enjoyment from the thrill that horror provides, horror also gives them a chance to "act out" deep-seated gender-based emotions. Males use it as a vehicle to display their mastery of fear and danger. Females, on the other hand, use horror-viewing situations as an opportunity to seek comfort from their male companion." [PsychInfo]

Studies of cognition show that Americans get much of their political information from audiovisual media. Therefore, attention to popular films can help us learn how genre conventions communicate politics. The popular genre of horror uses subtexts to help people face political evils in their everyday lives. Many of the evils lately concern the politics of communication, and this is evident in a wide range of horror films, recently including Phone Boo Ring (2002), and The Mothman Prophecies (2001).

"The course called 'Studies in Genre' explores mainly the horror genre, and uses it as a case study for more general theories of genre. The primary focus is on theory and application of genre as an exegetic tool. The course treats film studies, communication and literary analysis in broader cultural and academic context. The courses's modular design allows inclusion of other genres in successive semesters. The course encourages critical thinking in students by using several approaches and tools when analyzing texts." [Magazine Index]

Films that were intended to shock and disgust were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. The first film of this sort was 'The Exorcist' which opened in Dec 1973. Gross-out films include comedies, such as 'National Lampoon's Animal House' and 'Porky's' or horror films, such as 'Alien' and 'The Shining.'.

"The manner in which three horror films, the 1939 "Tower of London," the 1962 "Tower of London," and the 1973 "Theater of Blood," adapt Shakespearian plays are examined. Topics include how the "Tower of London" films are based on William Shakespeare's "Richard III," the roles Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone played in the 1939 film, Vincent Price's role in the 1962 and 1973 films, the poor cinematic execution in both "Tower of London" films, and the impressive cast and photography of the 1973 film, which utilizes the material of 12 Shakespearian plays." [Expanded Academic Index]

"Postmodern horror films do not have well defined boundaries, and are irrational. Contrasting elements, like life and death, good and evil, and normal and abnormal, are sometimes indistinguishable. The post-1968 films produce an experience of fear through their environment and setting, and through the use of devices like comedy, and melodrama. The films portray an unstable world in which violence and irrationalism are a part of everyday life. The portrayal of violence in the films relies on exhibiting explicit violence, creative death, and mutilated body. They also lack narrative closure." [Magazine Index]

Porton, Richard.

"The Film Director as Philosopher: An Interview with David Cronenberg." (Interview) Cineaste v24, n4 (Fall, 1999):4.

" Filmmaker David Cronenberg discusses his new film, "eXistenZ," and the theory of filmmaking he has developed since the 1960s. Topics include his belief in the importance of investigating challenging ideas, the relationship "eXistenZ" has to the fatwa issued on writer Salman Rushdie, the impact technology has on culture, and his experience working with actress Jennifer Jason Leigh." [Magazine Index]

"Adolescents identify with movie monsters in negotiating social structure and establishing personal point of view. Youthful awkwardness is amplified onscreen by the monsters, who fight against preestablished norms of appearance and conduct. The power that monsters wield mirrors adolescents' desires to gain control of their world on their own terms." [Magazine Index]

Sanjek, David.

"The bloody heart of rock 'n' roll: images of popular music in contemporary speculaive fiction." Journal of Popular Culture v28, n4 (Spring, 1995):179 (31 pages).

"American Nightmare: The Baying of Pigs: Reflections on the New American Horror Movie."
Senses of Cinema: an Online Film Journal Devoted to the Serious & Eclectic Discussion of Cinema. 15:(no
pagination). 2001 July-Aug

"Horror films and rock music are often subjected to harsh criticisms because of their perceived effect on the subconscious mind. Horror imagery can be found on recordings that are also featured in the soundtracks or plots of motion pictures. Critics of rock music often point out the bad effects of such type of recordings. However, few of them can provide substantial explanation why people are enticed either by violent lyrical imagery or aggressive musical rhythms." [Magazine Index]

Schneider, Steven Jay.

"Kevin Williamson and the Rise of the Neo-Stalker." Post Script: Essays in Film & the Humanities. 19(2):73-87. 2000 Winter-Spring.

"Manifestations of the Literary Double in Modern Horror Cinema."
Film and Philosophy, vol. Special Ed, pp. 51-62, 2001

"This essay follows Freud and Rank in presenting a psychoanalytic treatment of the double; my focus, however, will be on this phenomenon as manifested in the modern horror film. After distinguishing between physical doubles ("replicas") and mental doubles ("alter egos"), I will (1) map the many varieties of the horror film double onto a hierarchical structure; (2) trace these varieties back to their literary prototypes (e.g., in works by Hogg, Poe, and Stevenson); and (3) examine the particularly modern manifestation of the double as it appears in a horror film subgenre that I have elsewhere labeled "uncanny realism."" [Philosopher's Index]

Schneider, Steven.

"Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and the Representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror." Other Voices, v.1, n.3 (January 1999)

"Unlike their forebears in the horror genre, recent films such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) reflect the neoconservatism of contemporary society by upholding, rather than undermining, the status quo." [America:

Sharrett, Christopher.

"Uncanny Realism and the Decline of the Modern Horror Film."
Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres, vol. 3, no. 3-4, pp. 417-28, 1997

"University of Virginia English professor Mark Edmundson is becoming a well-known critic of American culture. He has written a book, 'Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of the Gothic,' that analyzes recent horror films and finds they reflect Americans' increasingly Gothic pessimism, apathy and sense of terror. Edmundson also authored a controversial essay in Harper's magazine that criticized college professors for their dispassionate teaching, and college students for their excessive passivity, intellectual apathy, and emotional detachment from their own education." [Magazine Index]

Sharrett, Christopher.

"The horror film in neoconservative culture." (Ethical Issues in Film and Television) Journal of Popular Film and Television v21, n3 (Fall, 1993):100 (11 pages).

"The controlling ethic of horror films makes the concept of the Other very problematic. This argument has a strong influence to the critical discourse of fantastic cinema. In addition, it valorized the 'return of the repressed' element of horror films that cannot be easily separated into normality or abnormality related to the construction of Self/Other in popular genres such as cowboys and Indians or policemen and mobsters. The rhetorically-exaggerated manifestation of the Other in horror film monsters present a tendency for the genre to neutralize assumptions on the Other." [Expanded Academic Index]

"University of Virginia English professor Mark Edmundson is becoming a well-known critic of American culture. He has written a book, 'Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of the Gothic,' that analyzes recent horror films and finds they reflect Americans' increasingly Gothic pessimism, apathy and sense of terror. Edmundson also authored a controversial essay in Harper's magazine that criticized college professors for their dispassionate teaching, and college students for their excessive passivity, intellectual apathy, and emotional detachment from their own education." [Magazine Index]

The article presents a reprint of the article "The Horrors of War," by David J. Skal, which appeared in the 1993 issue of the book "The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror." The author shows how the monsters and the horror films of Universal Pictures produced in the World War II period at RKO Studio. It explores how the wolf man story provided by a metaphoric treatment for the bestialities of war. It also relates how Nazi culture outlined with wolf imagery.

"Gender analysis of frightening film newspaper advertisements: a 50-year overview (1940-1990." Communication Quarterly v46, n1 (Wntr, 1998):100 (9 pages). Author Abstract: Given the perceived influence of advertising as an agent of socialization and concerns of violence raised by recent content analyses of horror films, the visual content of newspaper horror film advertising was examined over a 50 year period, 1940-1990. Results indicate that male protagonists consistently outnumbered females and females were more often depicted as victims at least until recently. However, the most common depictions were those of aggression and victimization involving characters of undetermined gender. COPYRIGHT 1998 Eastern Communication Association. [Magazine Index]

"Film noir, a new variety of horror films, appeared in the 1940s, when the supernatural conflict between good and bad had given way to scepticism about God. The pastoral world of innocence was lost and characters gained the forbidden knowledge. Noir took away the supernatural aspects of horror films. It brought back horror films from a foreign setting to credible domestic landscapes. Horror films also enriched the genre of film noir by raising the crime film from its proletarian origin to a fanciful world of metaphoric powers." [Magazine Index]

"The Sanctification of Fear: Images of the Religious in Horror Films." Journal of Religion &
Film. 5(2):43 paragraphs. 2001 Oct

"Horror film functions both as a threat and a catharsis by confronting us with our fear of death, the supernatural, the unknown and irrational, ''the other" in general, a loss of identity, and forces beyond our control. Over the last century, religious symbols and themes have played a prominent and persistent role in the on-screen construction of this confrontation. That role is, at the same time, ambiguous insofar as religious iconography has become unhinged from a compelling moral vision and reduced to mere conventions that produce a quasi-religious quality to horror that lacks the symbolic power required to engage us at the deepest level of our being. Although religious symbols in horror films are conventional in their frequent use, they may have lost all connection to deeper human questions."

"Employing the extremes of self-reflexivity with copious intertextual references to earlier horror landmarks, postmodern horror texts revitalized the ailing genre in the mid-1990s and continue to boast commercial success. A certain kinship has existed between postmodernism and horror for quite some time. The examination of the interconnections facilitates a greater understanding of contemporary horror cinema as well as a new model through which to view the genre as a whole. Both are fundamentally concerned with parallel questions about how we perceive and make sense of the world around us and both offer comparable models for ordering the knowledge we possess about the external world." [International Index to the Performing Arts]

"A survey was conducted to determine the antecedents of the exposure to and appeal of horror films. Audience members leaving the theater after viewing Halloween II were interviewed using a questionnaire that contained measures of specific reasons for liking horror films as well as measures of several individual-difference variables. A model emerged from structural equation analysis indicating that three important factors in the appeal of horror films are (a) the audience's desire to experience the satisfying resolutions usually provided in these films, (b) the audience's desire to see the destruction often found in these films, and (c) the sensation-seeking personality traits of audience members for these films. In addition, age and gender were important predictors. Horror films were enjoyed more by males and by younger viewers."

Tan, Yvette Natalie U.

"The Vampire in Horror Film and Literature as a Link to the Abject That Is Seen in
the Woman." The Diliman Review. 49(3-4):76-83. 2001

"What is the appeal of horror? Various attempts have been made to answer this question, generally combining arguments about the nature of horror texts with arguments about the distinctive character of horror consumers. The most common attempts at general explanation are grounded in concepts drawn from psychoanalytic theory, some depending quite directly on Freud's 'return of the repressed' argument in his discussion of 'the uncanny', others utilizing the framework of 'structural psychoanalysis' to explore the ways in which the unconscious structures forms of representation. Examples of both forms of analysis are discussed - largely in relation to horror movies - exemplified in the recent work of Wood, Twitchell, Creed and Clover. General explanations which do not use psychoanalytic arguments are less common, though Carroll has recently offered one such approach which is given consideration here. It is argued that these attempts at posing general explanations of the appeal of horror are, at worst, inappropriately reductive and, at best, insufficiently specific, failing to distinguish the diverse pleasures that heterogeneous horror audiences take from their active involvement in the genre. Alternative, more particularistic approaches are considered (exemplified in aspects of work by Biskind, Carroll, Dika, Jancovich and Tudor) which seek to relate textual features to specific social circumstances. It is argued that such approaches pre-suppose a social ontology centred upon active social agents who use cultural artefacts as resources in rendering coherent their everyday lives. This is in some contrast to attempts to provide general explanations of horror's appeal where the tacit model is one in which human agents are pre-constituted in key respects, horror appealing, therefore, because it gratifies pre-established desires. It is suggested that the former, active and particularistic conception is to be preferred and that this necessitates a renewed attempt to grasp the diversity of what is, after all, a heterogenous audience capable of taking diverse pleasures from their favoured genre." [Ingenta]

The article presents the author's view on the examination of the attempts by film makers to manage the changes such as economic, social, and political which are represented by the domestic film audience by a series of media-savvy horror films. The author focuses on the horror films which include "The Blair Witch Project, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, and The Ring. Other movie films presented include FeardotCom and Cloverfield.

Urbano, C

"Projections, Suspense, and Anxiety: The Modern Horror
Film and its Effects." Psychoanalytic Review 85.6, 1998.

Author Abstract: "This experiment assesses the impact of two exposure strategies on children's emotional and cognitive reactions to a frightening movie scene. Children from two grade levels (kindergarten and first vs. second through fourth) received a desensitization treatment in which modeled exposure to a live earthworm was factorially varied with exposure to graphic photographs of worms taken from a horror film. Children then viewed a frightening scene involving worms taken from this same film. Results indicated that exposure to photographs increased children's enjoyment of the movie segment and reduced fear reactions to the scene. In contrast, the live exposure strategy was effective in reducing fear reactions to the movie only among boys. However, live exposure did alter children's affective reactions to and judgments of worms themselves. The findings are discussed in terms of current theories of desensitization and information processing." COPYRIGHT International Communication Association 1993. [Magazine Index]

"Cronenberg's 'Shivers' (1974) and Tsukamoto's 'Testuo' films (1989,1992) are examples of films that expose the horror of being invaded from within by aspects of one's own body. In both films the Cold War rhetoric of external invasion turns into the bodily rhetoric of internal invasion: viruses replace missiles. Both films reveal human fears of bodily decay, disease, and transformation. Both films were probably influenced by the depiction of bodily invasion in 'Aliens.' Bodily horror addresses many of the same issues as Surrealism." [Magazine Index]

Author Abstract: This experiment assesses the effectiveness of two reality explanations on children's reactions to a frightening program. Children from two age groups (5-6 vs. 7-9 years) were assigned to one of three conditions before watching a frightening movie scene: special tricks explanation, real life explanation, or no explanation. Results revealed that neither of the reality instructions influenced younger children's emotional or cognitive reactions to the program. In contrast, the special tricks explanation reduced older children's emotional responses to the movie, but had no impact on their interpretations of the program. Unexpectedly, the real life explanation did not influence older children's emotional reactions, and had only a limited effect on interpretations of the program. The findings are discussed in terms of developmental differences in perceived reality. COPYRIGHT Speech Communication Association 1991. [Magazine Index]

Wilson, Robert Anton.

""Even A Man Who Is Pure Of Heart": The Horror Film As American Folk-Art." Journal of Human Relations 1971 19(1): 4-17.

"Seeks an explanation for the American public's desire to view horror films. "The history of the horror film . . . is the record of the American public's uneasy groping toward an understanding of the repressed and unconscious forces which have made America the most feared nation in the world." The plunge into the unconscious so characteristic of horror film audiences offers no solution to problems, and only clouds reality." [America: History and Life]

Analysis of the horror movies by Tod Browning and the representation of women in his wor

Wood, Bret.

"The witch, the devil and the code." (influence of the Production Code on the making of 'The Devil Doll') Film Comment v28, n6 (Nov-Dec, 1992):52 (5 pages).

Tod Browning was forced to severely tone down the horror in his 1936 film, 'The Devil Doll,' to meet the standards of the Production Code. The movie was based on 'Burn, Witch, Burn,' which told the story of a woman who transferred the minds and souls of people into dolls.

"The writer discusses how certain 1940s horror films were revised to meet the needs of wartime propaganda during World War II. The horror film declined to B-movie status during the 1940s as a result of the real horrors of the war and therefore ceased to command wide audiences or critical respect. Certain studio horror films produced after Pearl Harbor can be viewed as historical products influenced by wartime propaganda themes defined by the U.S. government's Office of War Information (OWI). Hollywood's cooperation with the government in the creation of wartime propaganda in horror films is documented in the OWI's Bureau of Motion Picture files, which show that changes in film content can often be traced to the process of direct OWI/studio interaction. The writer goes on to discuss several wartime horror films, including Columbia's Return of the Vampire, a particularly intriguing genre variation, in which Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula stalks England during the Nazi Blitz." [Art Index}

"Worland extensively analyzes the 1973 horror film "The Abominable hitDr. hitPhibes," released through Roger Corman's American International Pictures, directed by Robert Fuest, and starring Vincent Price. Worland situates "The Abominable hitDr. hitPhibes" as an important example of the horror genre in transition, due to its clever referencing of both previous horror movies and of Vincent Price's alternate cultural persona as a refined aesthete and as a spokesperson for the retailer Sears Roebuck & Co. Worland examines the movie and compares and contrasts its central character, its plot, and its overall theme to previous Price star vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s as well as the 1925 silent version of "The Phantom of the Opera." He also studies the marketing of the film, which was billed as Vincent Price's 100th release." [IIPA]

Wu, Harmony

"Tracking the Horrific: Editor's Introduction." Spectator - The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television 22:2 [Fall 2002] p.1-11

This special issue of Spectator on horror media has been organized as an effort to forge
new avenues in the study of genre generally and horror specifically.

A film director details the reasons for his attraction to horror movies. He believes that a movie's capacity to instill fear and horror in the hearts and minds of viewers depends on the art of story telling through motion picture. He narrates the reasons for his liking Robert Wise's adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' into the movie 'The Haunting.'.

"One Piece of the Formula: The Hawksian Women in the Films of John Carpenter."
Popular Culture Review, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 115-22, 2004

Craig, Shea G.

"Invasion of the Individual: John Carpenter's Modernization of the Myth of Identity-Theft in The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and They Live."
Popular Culture Review, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 123-30, 2004

Cumbow, Robert C.

Order in the universe : the films of John Carpenter Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2000.

MAIN: PN1998.3.C38 C8 2000

MAIN: PN1998.3.C38 C8 1990 [earlier edition]

The films of John Carpenter cover a tremendous range and yet all bear his clear personal stamp. From the horrifying (Halloween) to the touching (Starman) to the controversial (The Thing) to the comic (Big Trouble in Little China), his films reflect a unique approach to filmmaking and singular views of humanity and American culture.
This analysis of Carpenter's films includes a historical overview of his career, and in-depth entries on each of his films, from 1975's Dark Star to 1998?s Vampires. Complete cast and production information is provided for each. The book also covers those films written and produced by Carpenter, such as Halloween II and Black Moon Rising, as well as Carpenter?s work for television. Appendices are included on films Carpenter was offered but turned down, the slasher films that followed in the wake of the highly-successful Halloween, the actors and characters who make repeated appearances in Carpenter?s films, and ratings for Carpenter?s work. Notes, bibliography, and index are included. [publisher's description]

Emery, Robert J.

"John Carpenter." In:
The directors : in their own words / [compiled by] Robert J. Emery.
New York : TV Books, c1999-

Order in the universe : the films of John Carpenter Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2000.

MAIN: PN1998.3.C38 C8 2000

MAIN: PN1998.3.C38 C8 1990 [earlier edition]

The films of John Carpenter cover a tremendous range and yet all bear his clear personal stamp. From the horrifying (Halloween) to the touching (Starman) to the controversial (The Thing) to the comic (Big Trouble in Little China), his films reflect a unique approach to filmmaking and singular views of humanity and American culture.
This analysis of Carpenter?s films includes a historical overview of his career, and in-depth entries on each of his films, from 1975?s Dark Star to 1998?s Vampires. Complete cast and production information is provided for each. The book also covers those films written and produced by Carpenter, such as Halloween II and Black Moon Rising, as well as Carpenter?s work for television. Appendices are included on films Carpenter was offered but turned down, the slasher films that followed in the wake of the highly-successful Halloween, the actors and characters who make repeated appearances in Carpenter?s films, and ratings for Carpenter?s work. Notes, bibliography, and index are included. [publisher's description]

Dika, Vera

Games of terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the films of the stalker cycle / Vera Dika. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, c1990.

"Martin Harris analyzes hitthe "Halloween" series of films, with a focus on "Halloween III: Season of hitthe Witch," in order to assess hitthe prevalence and endurance of modern horror movie franchises through a discussion of hitthe second sequel's promotion and reception. What makes "Halloween III" especially interesting in this context is hitthe way hitthe narrative of hitthe conflict between commercialism and art surrounding hitthe film is reflected in hitthe film itself. Harris also argues that hitthe economic realities of Hollywood more directly explain hitthe continuation of horror franchises than does postmodern theory." [IIPA]

"American director John Carpenter boasts one of the most consistent and coherent oeuvres in modern cinema, in spite of his marginalization by critics. His cinematic triumphs, including Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, and The Fog, far outnumber his minor or problematic movies. Although he has been outcast largely on account of shifting fashions, Carpenter stands alone as the last genre filmmaker in the United States." [Art Index]

Discusses the ways in which AIDS has been transcoded into the imagination of science fiction and horror cinema. Comparison of two version of `The Thing' and two versions of `The Fly'; The 1982 cast of `The Thing' as all male and bi-racial; The social environment and its implications.

Katovich, Michael A; Kinkade, Patrick T.

"The Stories Told in Science Fiction and Social Science: Reading The Thing and Other Remakes From Two Eras."Sociological Quarterly, 34:4 Nov 1993, pp: 619+

"Examines science fiction films of the 1950's (made during the Cold War) and their remakes in the 1970's and 1980's (made in the post-1960's, after Vietnam and Watergate) in conjunction with stories told by social scientists during the same eras. The authors provide a subversive reading of social scientific datasets and science fiction films and pay special attention to both versions of The Thing (1951, 1982) as relevant examples of Cold War and post-1960's statements. Social scientific and film productions of the 1950's correlate with optimistic public sentiments of the Cold War era in regard to the abilities of the military, government, and medicine to solve social problems. The more recent reproductions conjure images of a much more pessimistic view of institutions. Readings of social scientific products, science fiction films, and their remakes can inform social theories in general and postmodern social theories in particular." [America: History and Life]

Morrison, Michael A.

"A few remarks about a couple of things: Hawks and Carpenter reconfigure Campbell." In: Trajectories of the fantastic : selected essays from the Fourteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts / edited by Michael A. Morrison.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1997.

Discusses how social politics and ideology infiltrate genres and influence authorship practices in hippie horror films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Definition of horror film according to the essay "An Introduction to the American Horror Film," by Robin Wood; Similarity of the social role of the horror film to the Freudian understanding of dreams; Views of director Wes Craven on horror films that are centered around the conceit of mirrored families.

Going to pieces: the rise and fall of the slasher film[Videorecording]

Dissects the slasher film genre in this ultimate anthology that takes you on a horrifying journey through your favorite slasher films, including Halloween; Psycho; Friday the 13th; Prom Night; and many more. Guides you through a series of gruesome scenes from classic films and recent hits.

The spring, defiled: Ingmar Bergman's Virgin spring and Wes Craven's Last house on the left. In: Play it again, Sam : retakes on remakes / edited by Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal ; with an afterword by Leo Braudy. Berkeley : University of California Press, c1998.

Main Stack PN1995.9.R45.P58 1998

Moffitt PN1995.9.R45.P58 1998

Clover, Carol J.

"High and Low: The Transformation of the Rape-Revenge Movie." In: Women and film : a Sight and sound reader / edited by Pam Cook and Philip Dodd. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1993.

"'Only a Movie: Specters of Vietnam in Wes Craven's Last House on the Left." In: Shocking representation : historical trauma, national cinema, and the modern horror film / Adam Lowenstein.
New York : Columbia University Press, c2005.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1995.9.H6 L69 2005

Maddrey, Joseph

"Wes Craven: The New Myths." In: Nightmares in red, white and blue : the evolution of the American horror film / Joseph Maddrey.
Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, c2004.

"The Nightmare on Elm Street movie series' underlying theme focused on the ideological differences of a dominant culture and certain subcultures. The confrontations between good and bad in the series provide the backdrop for the teenagers' rite of passage. Another conflict presented in the series is the dilemma of children on how to avoid being controlled by their parents. Other conflicts were tackled in the Nightmare movies, such as conflicts between the youth and the police; between young people and work; and between young people and religion." [Expanded Academic Index]

This essay discusses representations of female paranoia in Wes Craven's film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.' Topics include a brief synopsis of the film, the relationship between reality and dream, and misogynist and feminist representation in horror.

Rathgeb, Douglas L.

"Bogeyman from the ID: Nightmare and Reality in Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street."
Journal of Popular Film & Television. 19(1):36-43. 1991 Spring

"Jason Dreams of Freddy: Genre, Supertext, and the Production of Meaning through Pop-Cultural
Literacy." In: Florida State University Conference on Literature and Film (14th: 1989) Cultural power/cultural literacy: selected papers from the Fourteenth Annual Florida State University Conference on Literature and Film pp: 179-98. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press; Gainesville, FL: Orders to University Presses of Florida, c1991.

'Scream 2' is expected to be the most profitable movie of the Winter, 1997-98 season. Six of the actresses featured in the film discuss how they would expect to react to real-life terror. The actresses responses to identical questions are recorded and compared.

The independent horror film 'Scream' by Wes Craven has grossed more than $100 million, a performance which affirms the profitability of horror movies. The innovative style of 'Scream' has impressed audiences and caught the interest of filmmakers.

Mitchell, Elvis

"The ultimate scream: still mad, still slashing." (Review)
The New York Times Feb 4, 2000 pB14(N) pE14(L) col 3 (20 col in)

The article presents the author's view on horror and cultural dimensions of the film series directed by Wes Craven including "Scream," "Scream 2," and "Scream 3." According to the author, the Scream trilogy is based on certain assumptions related to media effects theory that argues about the effect of repeated watching of violent and horror acts on a person's orientation to commit violence. The films analyzes popular culture as politics of modern era.

Tietchen, Todd F.

"Samplers and copycats: the cultural implications of the postmodern slasher in contemporary American film."
Journal of Popular Film and Television Vol XXVI nr 3 (Fall 1998); p 98-107

"The author examines the Scream trilogy and disputes the perception that the series is conservative and reactionary in its politics. She argues that the films reflect specific 1990s American concerns and contends that the distinctive treatment of the slasher villain and final female survivor reflect a progressive, revolutionary stance." [Art Index]

"The films in the Scream trilogy are examples of hyperpostmodernism. This trilogy, which together grossed the highest combined box office ever for a horror franchise, emerged as the representative texts of the slasher film as well as of the teen film of the late 1990s, significantly influencing the entertainment industry as a whole. More significantly, it helped legitimize the slasher/horror/exploitation genre, with great acclaim from both the public and the critics. Its films represent a distinctive, more advanced form of postmodernism characterized by a heightened, self-conscious degree of intertextual referencing and self-reflexivity, and by a propensity for ignoring film-specific boundaries by actively using strategies strategies that have further blurred the boundaries that once separated discrete media--referencing, "borrowing," and influencing the styles and formats of other media forms, including television." [Art Index]

Whitney, Allison

"Can You Fear Me Now? Cell phones and the American Horror Film." In: The cell phone reader : essays in social transformation / edited by Anandam Kavoori and Noah Arcenea
New York : Peter Lang, c2006.

Discusses the horror film as a subversive genre with particular reference to four directors: Bob Clark, Wes Craven, George Romero and Stephanie Rothman.

Wood, Robin

Normality and monsters: the films of Larry Cohen and George Romero In: Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan New York : Columbia University Press, 1986.

MAIN: PN1993.5.U6 W641 1986

MOFF: PN1993.5.U6 W64 1985

Dawn of the Dead / Day of the Dead

The American Nightmare [videorecording]

Commentary: George Romero, John Carpenter, Tom Savini, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Landis.
Knife-weilding murderers, buxom teens fleeing for their lives, the undead limping across streets. These images are synonymous with horror movies. Go behind-the-scenes with filmmaker greats as they reveal their inspirations for some of the most disturbingly gruesome films that have emerged on screen. Includes excerpts from classic horror films. 71 min. Media Center DVD 2417

Bishop, Kyle.

"Raising the dead: unearthing the nonliterary origins of zombie cinema." Journal of Popular Film and Television 33.4 (Wntr 2006): 196(10).

"Bishop examines hitthe origins of the zombie film genre and hitthe nature of its visual impact, noting that traditional zombie movies have no direct antecedent in hitthe novels or short fiction because of their essentially visual nature. Zombies do not think or speak - they simply act, so all of their intentions and activities are manifested through physical actions, making them more suited for film. Bishop begins with a discussion of hitthe zombie's roots in folklore and examines hitthe creation of hitthe modern zombie and its cinematic representation, taking a special look at hitthe formula found in hitthe films of George A. Romero." [IIPA]

Gagne, Paul

The zombies that ate Pittsburgh : the films of George A. Romero New York : Dodd, Mead, c1987.

"The focus on consumerism that turns people into zombies whose desires are controlled by cultural training to want has been exploited in many American films including George A. Romero's zombie trilogy. These films show people returning from the dead or just being taken over so that they no longer have control or emotions. Many of the films also show looting and 'free shopping' as a sign of civilization's collapse because that is what the desires pressed upon people for more and more material goods can result in." [Expanded Academic Index]

"The article presents studies of several international movies that underwent remake due to political correction. These films include "Rollerball," directed by Norman Jewison and "Dawn of the Dead," directed by George A. Romero. It states that the works of Jewison have offered insufficient historical information especially on elaboration of totalitarian society and dystopian vision. On the other hand, the works of Romero made wrong distinct perspective to select shopping malls as the footage for mindless zombies. The author emphasizes that the movies did not get the essence of political economic topics." [EBSCO]

"Romero's masterpiece about cannibal zombies plaguing the world is set in a US shopping center, redefining the zombie so as to infect consumer identity. The popular perception of mindless consumer as zombie is owed strictly to Dawn of the Dead (1979), and extends far beyond the film's genre, demographics and era. This film - itself a commodity - has earned a place in the American imagination by undermining that very imagination's dependence on commodity culture. A combination of film analysis, cultural studies and personal narrative, this essay endeavors to tell the story of the story called Dawn of the Dead by locating the postmodern zombie historically in popular culture, analyzing the film as a satire of what Romero calls 'the false security of consumer society', exploring Dawn as a commodity itself (one appropriated by the very consumer culture Romero sought to subvert), considering Dawn as a master tale spawning 'rip-offs' and hybrids, and articulating all the while the parallels between Dawn's postmodern zombie and the North American consumer."

Nichols, Peter M.

"Horror as an everlasting failure to communicate." (director George A. Romero combines realism and horror in his films, which have just been reissued on video)
The New York Times July 12, 1998 v147 s2 pAR24(N) pAR24(L) col 1 (11 col in)

Maslin, Janet

"Day of the dead." (movie reviews) The New York Times July 3, 1985 v134 p18(N) pC19(L) col 3 (9 col in)

Filmmaker George Romero includes Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and many filmmakers among his influences. Most of Romero's characters prefer to ignore their immediate problems, reflecting his concern about broadcast and print media contributing to chaos and abdicating responsibility.

Commentary: George Romero, John Carpenter, Tom Savini, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Landis.
Knife-weilding murderers, buxom teens fleeing for their lives, the undead limping across streets. These images are synonymous with horror movies. Go behind-the-scenes with filmmaker greats as they reveal their inspirations for some of the most disturbingly gruesome films that have emerged on screen. Includes excerpts from classic horror films. 71 min. Media Center DVD 2417

Arnzen, Michael A.

"Who's laughing now? The postmodern splatter film." Journal of Popular Film and Television v21, n4 (Wntr, 1994):176 (9 pages).

"Splatter film was first introduced in George Romero's neo-classic 'Night of the Living Dead' released in 1968. This film and others of its kind use gore and graphic violence to show that evil is outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply. Splatter films differ from typical horror films because they revel in the special effects of gore as an artform. They are part of postmodern art and depict postmodern condition as a vehicle for cultural transformation." [Expanded Academic Index]

"George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' has been remade by Tom Savini. The remake differs from the original film in that it offers a variety of different explanations, rather than a single one, for the plague of zombies. Romero's zombies can be interpreted as representations of an alienated underclass, those workers and consumers who have become displaced by economic and political developments." [Magazine Index]

Bishop, Kyle.

"Raising the dead: unearthing the nonliterary origins of zombie cinema." Journal of Popular Film and Television 33.4 (Wntr 2006): 196(10).

"Bishop examines hitthe origins of hitthe zombie film genre and hitthe nature of its visual impact, noting that traditional zombie movies have no direct antecedent in hitthe novels or short fiction because of their essentially visual nature. Zombies do not think or speak - they simply act, so all of their intentions and activities are manifested through physical actions, making them more suited for film. Bishop begins with a discussion of hitthe zombie's roots in folklore and examines hitthe creation of hitthe modern zombie and its cinematic representation, taking a special look at hitthe formula found in hitthe films of George A. Romero." [IIPA]

Caputi, Jane.

"Films of the Nuclear Age."
Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 16 no. 3. 1988 Fall. pp: 100-107.

Analysis and comparison of "Frankenstein", "The wolf man" and "Night of the living dead" for their metaphysical and moral values.

Dillard, R.H.W.

"Night of the living dead: it's not like just a wind that's passing through." In:
American horrors : essays on the modern American horror film / edited by Gregory A. Waller. p. 14-29
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1987.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.A391 1987

Moffitt PN1995.9.H6.A39 1987

PFA PN1995.9.H6.A39 1987

Dyer, Richard

"White." Screen Vol XXIX nr 4 (Autumn 1988); p 44-64

Discussion of the representation of 'whiteness' in mainstream film, illustrated by "Simba", "Jezebel" and "Night of the living dead".

Gagne, Paul

The zombies that ate Pittsburgh : the films of George A. Romero New York : Dodd, Mead, c1987.

"Explores the treatment of certain themes, notably feminism, in the films of George A. Romero, focusing on "Night of the living dead", the remaining two parts of his zombie trilogy, and the 1990 remake which he wrote."

The controversy surrounding the 1968 release of "Night of the Living Dead" was the result of changes in the horror genre and efforts by the distributor, Continental, to exploit its diverse seasonal releases in several markets, including the afternoon matinee, art house, and inner-city neighborhood theater.

"Night of the Living Dead: A Horror Film about the Horrors of the Vietnam Era." In: From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film / edited by Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. pp: 175-88. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, c1990.

Main Stack DS557.73.F76 1990

Moffitt DS557.73.F76 1990

Hoshi, Takeo

"Economics of the Living Dead." Japanese Economic Review Volume 57 Page 30 - March 2006

Zombie firms are those firms that are insolvent and have little hope of recovery but avoid failure thanks to support from their banks. This paper identifies zombie firms in Japan, and compares the characteristics of zombies to other firms. Zombie firms are found to be less profitable, more indebted, more dependent on their main banks, more likely to be found in non-manufacturing industries and more often located outside large metropolitan areas. Overall, larger size makes the firm less likely to be a zombie, but among small firms, relatively larger firms are more likely to be protected and become zombies. Controlling for profitability, the exit probability for zombie firms does not differ from that for non-zombies. Zombie firms tend to increase employment by more (but do not reduce employment by more) than non-zombies. Finally, when the proportion of zombie firms in an industry increases, job creation declines and job destruction increases, and the effects are stronger for non-zombies.

"The article discusses racial tensions as depicted in the horror film "Night of the Living Dead." As the story ends, Ben, one of the protagonists who fight zombies, is shot dead by law enforcers who have mistaken for him for a zombie. The death of the African-American hero is seen by many as manifestation of racial discrimination in the 1960s. Another scene that mirrors racial tension is when a white female protagonist trembles upon seeing Ben, apparently not because he looks like a zombie, but because of his race." [Ebsco]

Moreman, Christopher M.

"Dharma of the Living Dead: A Meditation on the Meaning of the Hollywood Zombie." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses June 2010 vol. 39 no. 2 263-281

"Greek gifts: vision and revision in two versions of Night of the living dead." In: Trajectories of the fantastic : selected essays from the Fourteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts / edited by Michael A. Morrison. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1997.

Discusses the recent popularity of cult films since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), and describes briefly several of the most popular cult films including El Topo, Eraserhead, Harold and Maude, and particularly The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The article discusses the influence of the 1968 film "Night of the Living Dead" as social criticism and as the first modern horror film to use contagion as a theme. It notes that "Night of the Living Dead" diverges from traditional vampire and zombie films in that it removes the seductiveness of surrender from the formula. Its influence is seen as the threat of communicability and the power of one scratch to change one's identity forever.

Waller, Gregory A.

The Living and the Undead: From Stoker's Dracula to Romero's Dawn of the Dead / Gregory A. Waller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1986.

Main Stack PN1995.9.V3.W31 1986

Wells, Paul.

"Night of the Living Dead." In: The horror genre : from Beezlebub to Blair Witch
London : Wallflower, 2000.

MAIN: PN1995.9.H6 W455 2000

Williams, Tony

The cinema of George A. Romero : knight of the living dead London : Wallflower, 2003.

MAIN: PN1998.3.R65 W55 2003

Williams, Tony

"An interview with George and Christine Romero." (Interview)
Quarterly Review of Film and Video Oct 2001 v18 i4 p397(15)

Filmmaker George Romero includes Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and many filmmakers among his influences. Most of Romero's characters prefer to ignore their immediate problems, reflecting his concern about broadcast and print media contributing to chaos and abdicating responsibility.

Wood, Robin

Normality and monsters: the films of Larry Cohen and George Romero In: Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan New York : Columbia University Press, 1986.

MAIN: PN1993.5.U6 W641 1986

MOFF: PN1993.5.U6 W64 1985

Books, Articles and Videos About Herschell Gordon Lewis

Crane, Jonathan.

"Scaping Bottom: Splatter and the Herschell Gordon Lewis Oeuvre." In: The horror film / edited and with an introduction by Stephen Prince. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2004.

Books, Articles and Videos About Val Lewton

"On Val Lewton's The seventh victim." In: American movie critics : an anthology from the silents until now / edited by Phillip Lopate.
New York : Library of America : Distributed to the trade by Penguin Putnam, c2006.

Main Stack PN1995.A448 2006

Moffitt PN1995.A448 2006

PFA PN1995.A72 2006

Bansak, Edmund G.

Fearing the dark: the Val Lewton career / by Edmund G. Bansak; with a foreword by Robert Wise. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., c1995.

"Access to the full range of horror films produced by Val Lewton at RKO in Warner's recently released Lewton DVD collection shows the producer's rarely discussed lively social concerns. The nine films in this collection show Lewton's subversion of Hollywood prohibitions against depicting historically and systematically generated social evils throughout his horror masterpieces, in all of which psychological horror and social injustice and/or imbalances are inextricably connected. They allow for an enhanced recognition and vivid appreciation of the racist cycle of suffering, the crucial roles of patriarchal entitlement, class struggle, the commercialization of human relations, and urban alienation in the Lewton's films." [Art Index]

"Children of Horror: The Films of Val Lewton." In: Aspects of fantasy : selected essays from the Second International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film / edited by William Coyle.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1986.

Main Stack P96.F36.I571 1981

Telotte, J. P.

Dreams of darkness: fantasy and the films of Val Lewton / J.P. Telotte. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1985.

UCB Main PN1998.A3 L488 1985

Telotte, J. P.

"The horror mythos and Val Lewton's Isle of the dead." Journal of Popular Film and Television
Vol X nr 3 (Fall 1982); p.119-129

"Val Lewton and the Perspective of Horror." In: Forms of the fantastic : selected essays from the Third International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film / edited by Jan Hokenson and Howard Pearce.
New York : Greenwood Press, c1986.

Main Stack NX650.F36.I581 1982

Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows [videorecording]

A look at the life and career of Val Lewton, an American filmmaker best known for the 9 horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. Includes extensive interviews with Lewton's collaborators and clips from his films. 2007. 87 min.

"George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' has been remade by Tom Savini. The remake differs from the original film in that it offers a variety of different explanations, rather than a single one, for the plague of zombies. Romero's zombies can be interpreted as representations of an alienated underclass, those workers and consumers who have become displaced by economic and political developments." [Expanded Academic Index]

Contents: Introduction : the zombie film and its cycles. Raising the living dead : the folkloric and ideological origins of the voodoo zombie -- The return of the native : imperialist hegemony and the cinematic voodoo zombie -- The rise of the new paradigm : Night of the living dead and the zombie invasion narrative -- The dead walk the earth : the triumph of the zombie social metaphor in Dawn of the dead -- Humanizing the living dead : the evolution of the zombie protagonist -- Conclusion : the future shock of zombie cinema.

"Traditional zombie movies have no direct antecedent in the written word because of the monsters' essentially visual nature; zombies don't think or speak--they simply act. This unique embodiment of horror recalls Sigmund Freud's concept of the uncanny, which finds itself he Her suited to filmic representations rat her than prose renditions." [Art Index]

"The article examines the cultural significance and importance of the Victor Halperin's horror film "White Zombie." The author contends that when read critically through the context of colonial and postcolonial theory, several alarming themes and subtextual messages are apparent in the film. He argues that instead of enlightening western audiences about the cultural realities of Haiti, the film merely exploits rumors of voodoo practices and paganism. He asserts that racial dichotomies are only enforced by portraying whites as universally righteous and casting blacks as potentially wicked." [Ebsco]

Boon, Kevin Alexander

"Ontological Anxiety Made Flesh: The Zombie in Literature, Film and Culture." In: Monsters and the monstrous : myths and metaphors of enduring evil / edited by Niall Scott. Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2007.

Main Stack GR825.M676 2007

Dendle, Peter

"Zombies as Barometer of Cultural Anxiety." In: Monsters and the monstrous : myths and metaphors of enduring evil

Zombie firms are those firms that are insolvent and have little hope of recovery but avoid failure thanks to support from their banks. This paper identifies zombie firms in Japan, and compares the characteristics of zombies to other firms. Zombie firms are found to be less profitable, more indebted, more dependent on their main banks, more likely to be found in non-manufacturing industries and more often located outside large metropolitan areas. Overall, larger size makes the firm less likely to be a zombie, but among small firms, relatively larger firms are more likely to be protected and become zombies. Controlling for profitability, the exit probability for zombie firms does not differ from that for non-zombies. Zombie firms tend to increase employment by more (but do not reduce employment by more) than non-zombies. Finally, when the proportion of zombie firms in an industry increases, job creation declines and job destruction increases, and the effects are stronger for non-zombies.

"This article offers information regarding the existence of zombie as one of the most prevailing monster characters in films. According to the authors, zombies are found everywhere including in video games, comic books and to the science textbook. They added that zombie has become a scientific concept by which we define cognitive process and states of being counteracted animation and the awareness of format."

"This article discusses the evolution of zombie-themed motion pictures and how zombie films are more modernly used to comment on social situations such as the exploitation of the working class and the perils of pollution. Zombie films discussed in the article include "Resident Evil," directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, "Shaun of the Dead," directed by Edgar Wright, "Dawn of the Dead," directed by Zack Snyder and "28 Days Later," directed by Danny Boyle." [Ebsco]

Ní Fhlainn, Sorcha

"All Dark Inside: Dehumanization and Zombification in Postmodern Cinema." In: Better off dead : the evolution of the zombie as post-human / edited by Deborah Christie and Sarah Juliet Lauro.
New York : Fordham University Press, 2011.

Main (Gardner) Stacks GR581 .B48 2011

Contents: "They are not men ... they are dead bodies": from cannibal to zombie and back again / Chera Kee -- "We are the mirror of your fears": Haitian identity and zombification / Franck Degoul (translated by Elisabeth M. Lore) -- Undead radio: zombies and the living dead on 1930s and 1940s radio drama / Richard Hand -- The zombie as other: mortality and the monstrous in the post-nuclear age / Kevin Boon -- A dead new world: Richard Matheson and the modern zombie / Deborah Christie -- Nuclear death and radical hope in Dawn of the dead and On the beach / Nick Muntean -- Lucio Fulci and the decaying definition of zombie narratives / Steven Zani and Kevin Meaux -- Imitations of life: zombies and the suburban Gothic / Bernice Murphy -- All dark inside: dehumanization and zombification in postmodern cinema / Sorcha Ni Fhlainn -- Slacker bites back: Shaun of the dead finds new life for deadbeats / Lynn Pifer -- Zombie movies and the "millennial generation" / Peter Dendle -- "Off the page and into your brains!": new millennium zombies and the scourge of hopeful apocalypses / Margo Collins and Elson Bond -- Playing dead: zombies invade performance art, and your neighborhood / Sarah Juliet Lauro.

The article examines the popularity of zombie film remakes. David Wills explains the remake as a concentrated expression of cinema's inclination towards repetition and citation. The author enumerates the factors that contribute to the popularity of this genre including its cult status, its affiliation with B-film production style and its record of solid returns.

"A presentation of Hammer horror films on the occasion of a season devoted to them at the Festival d'Amiens, Amiens, France, November 10-19, 2006. The English Hammer horror films not only resuscitated the creatures found in American horror films of the 1930s, they also cut them up and sewed them back together as hybrids that were as audacious as they were deadly. The Hammer films also treated violence, sex, and childhood in a daring manner." [Art Index]

"In light of the August 1996 month-long Hammer season at the Barbican Cinema, London, the writer discusses some of the films produced by the Hammer studios. He points out that the history of the studio teaches us that the uneasy symbiotic relationship between British film and television goes back a very long way. The keynote of the Hammer project, he argues, was the smuggling in of something faintly subversive, a distant recognition of British national vices, secrets, or uncertainties under the guise of a sensational entertainment. He shows that the Hammer films are absolutely typical of English culture in the way they insist that extremes of violence and extremes of cosiness can and must coexist. The films discussed include The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Quatermass Xperiment, The Mummy, and Curse of the Werewolf." [Art Index]

Conrich, Ian.

"Traditions of the British Horror Film."
In: The British cinema book / edited by Robert Murphy. 2nd ed. pp: 226-32. London: British Film Institute, 2001.

Main Stack PN1993.5.G7.B66 2001

Cumbow, Robert C.

"Pictures on the walls of the house of Hammer." (Hammer films) Film Comment v28, n3 (May-June, 1992):51 (3 pages).

A large and varied group of talented directors, writers, and other film production staff participated in making the horror films produced by Hammer. Some went on to greater fame, such as cinematographer Freddie Francis. A listing of prominent Hammer staff members is provided.

Dixon, Wheeler W.

The charm of evil : the life and films of Terence Fisher Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1991.

MAIN: PN1998.3.F58 D5 1991

Fisher, Terence.

"Horror is My Business." In: The horror film reader / edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini.
New York : Limelight Editions, 2000.

Main (Gardner) Stacks & PFA PN1995.9.H6 H68 2000

PFA PN1995.9.H6 H68 2000)

Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror [Video]

Explore the most legendary horror studio of all time with this fascinating journey hosted by terror titans Cushing and Lee. Includes in-depth interviews with actors, directors, producers and writers; shock scenes from over 40 classic films; behind-the-scene home movies; and more. Written and directed by Ted Newsom. 1994. 99 min. DVD X5311

"This article considers the ways in which a range of films (made between 1957 and 1974) by British director Terence Fisher represented Europe in general, and Transylvania in particular. Fisher was able to take advantage of laisser-faire managerial conditions at Hammer in the 1950s, and the studio itself profited from the economic and legislative changes in 1950s British cinema. Fisher was able to gain a modicum of control over the scripting and editing processes, and, because he shared the aesthetic approach of his art director Bernard Robinson, was able to make a series of films which had the same visual style and approach to cinematic and geographical space. Fisher's Transylvania films worked by stripping the protagonists' demeanour bare, and by using irony and disavowal as a means of presenting an imaginary country where the audience's national, social and sexual fears could be safely explored."

Harper, Sue

"The Scent of Distant Blood: Hammer Films and History." In: Screening the past: film and the representation of history / edited by Tony Barta. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 1998.

"Resurrection in Britain : Christopher Lee and Hammer Draculas." In: The fantastic vampire : studies in the children of the night: selected essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts Edited by James Craig Holte. International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (18th : 1997 : Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2002.

"The color of blood: Hammer films and Curse of Frankenstein." In: Ghouls, gimmicks, and gold : horror films and the American movie business, 1953-1968 Durham : Duke University Press, 2004.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.H45 2004

Holte, James Craig

"Resurrection in Britain : Christopher Lee and Hammer Draculas." In: The fantastic vampire : studies in the children of the night: selected essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

"The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) finds it difficult to censor American horror movies. Many classic horror movies have been banned in UK due to their hardcore portrayal of death and violence. The British Board received a major threat due to the increase in videos in the 1980s, as previously banned movies were now easily made public through these videos. The release of the uncensored version of 'The Evil Dead' reveals the inability of the BBFC to censor horror movies." [Magazine Index]

The horror film produced by Hammer flourished in the late 1950s. The British-made films changed the look of horror films by reveling in sexuality and gore. 'The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) was Hammer's first gothic horror film. The failure of 'Phantom of the Opera' in 1962 spelled the end of Hammer's success.

"Twilight of the Monsters: The English Horror Film 1968-1975." In: Re-viewing British cinema, 1900-1992 : essays and interviews / edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon.
Albany : State University of New York Press, c1994.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1993.5.G7 R4 1994

Smith, Gary A.

Uneasy dreams: the golden age of British horror films, 1956-1976 / by Gary A. Smith; foreword by James Bernard. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, c2000.

Presents a brief history of the Italian horror film: its characteristics, lack of critical recognition, and the blend of 'exploitation' and 'art' in the work of its foremost directors Mario Bava and Dario Argento. The latter filmmaker's "Opera" chosen as a representative example.

Dubbed the "Italian Hitchcock", director Dario Argento's mix of gore, vivid colour and over-the-top production values have created such horror classics as Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae. Examines Argento's use of rock music, special effects and visual imagery, documenting his early career through to his latest work I Can't Sleep. 2000. 57 min. DVD X5329

"Blood and Black Gloves on Shiny Discs: New Media, Old Tastes, and the Remediation of Italian Horror Films in the United States." In: Horror international Edited by Steven Jay Schneider and Tony Williams. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, c2005.

Presents a brief history of the Italian horror film: its characteristics, lack of critical recognition, and the blend of 'exploitation' and 'art' in the work of its foremost directors Mario Bava and Dario Argento. The latter filmmaker's "Opera" chosen as a representative example.

"The Mother of All Horror: Witches, Gender, and the Films of Dario Argento." In: Monsters in the Italian literary imagination / edited by Keala Jewell. pp: 89-105 Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, c2001.

"Notes on the relevance of psychoanalytic theory to Euro-horror cinema." In: The couch and the silver screen : psychoanalytic reflections on European cinema / edited by Andrea Sabbadini. Hove ; New York : Brunner-Routledge, 2003.

"Balmain discusses hitMario hitBava'hits 1963 horror film "Ragazza che sapeva troppo" ("The Evil Eye") with a focus on how it does not fit into the prescribed notion of "realistic" horror films as set by Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" in 1960. The film marked the creation of a different horror/thriller genre hybrid known as "giallo," and set the genre's codes and conventions. Balmain asserts that the globalization of modern horror cinema has led to the silencing of its many variations, and consequently, the impact of auteurs such as Bava on the development of the horror film has been neglected. She emphasizes that hitBava'hits negation of psychoanalysis in "The Evil Eye" in both plot and theme sets it apart from other realistic horror films." [IIPA]

"Blood and Black Gloves on Shiny Discs: New Media, Old Tastes, and the Remediation of Italian Horror Films in the United States." In: Horror international Edited by Steven Jay Schneider and Tony Williams. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, c2005.

"Articles on machinery and the 'faceless' killer in "The terminator"; Russ Meyer's spell at a mainstream production company (Twentieth Century-Fox) for "Beyond the valley of the dolls"; a history of the sex hygiene film; murderers in the US cinema before and after "The honeymoon killers"; and the Italian horror cinema exemplified by the work of Mario Bava and Dario Argento." [FIAF]

Presents a brief history of the Italian horror film: its characteristics, lack of critical recognition, and the blend of 'exploitation' and 'art' in the work of its foremost directors Mario Bava and Dario Argento. The latter filmmaker's "Opera" chosen as a representative example.

Italian horror films of the 1960s were filled with aristocratic vampires and vengeful ghosts. They did not usually recreate any specific time period but were set sometime in the past. No one was innocent in these films and beauty often hid the darkest evil.

"Notes on the relevance of psychoanalytic theory to Euro-horror cinema." In: The couch and the silver screen : psychoanalytic reflections on European cinema / edited by Andrea Sabbadini. Hove ; New York : Brunner-Routledge, 2003.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1993.5.E8 C68 2003

Silver, Alain and Ursini, James

"Mario Bava." Images

Alain Silver and James Ursini examine the artistry of Mario Bava. [Plus, see animated GIFs of scenes from Black Sunday, What, and Hercules in the Haunted World]

Author Abstract: The content of slasher films was examined, focusing on what portion of the violence is directed toward and committed by women vs. men and the survival rates, the juxtaposition of sex and violence for male and female victims, and differences between male and female survivors vs. nonsurvivors. Five student coders analyzed 56 slasher films (474 victims). Female and male victims were portrayed equally frequently in these films. Male characters were as likely to die as female characters as a result of the attack; however, more female than male characters survived the attacks. The slashers were primarily men. Sexiness was paired with nonsurvival of female victims, whereas male nonsurvivors were portrayed as possessing negative masculine traits. The reinforcement of the good vs. bad woman dichotomy and the portrayed cost of unmitigated extreme masculinity in men in slasher films are discussed. COPYRIGHT Plenum Publishing Corporation 1990. [Magazine Index]

Crutchfield, Susan

"Touching scenes and finishing touches: blindness in the slasher film." In: Mythologies of violence in postmodern media / edited by Christopher Sharrett. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, c1999. Contemporary film and television series.

"The author discusses teen slasher films and how their constructs relate to late-20th century family structures. Adults in these films are either absent or useless, so the teen characters must overcome the supernatural killer on their own. As divorce became more common in the second half of the century, the family unit became weaker. In the slasher films of the late 1980s and 90s, the actions of the parents are what put the children at risk. The survivor characters, the teens who see their friends killed throughout the movie, possess similar traits: they are smart and quick-thinking as well as caring. Several hithorror movies, such as the "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, are discussed." [IIPA]

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film[Video]

Interviews with John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Rob Zombie, Tom Savini.
Dissects the slasher film genre in this ultimate anthology that takes you on a horrifying journey through your favorite slasher films, including Halloween; Psycho; Friday the 13th; Prom Night; and many more. Guides you through a series of gruesome scenes from classic films and recent hits. Based on the book "Going to pieces: the rise and fall of the slasher film" by Adam Rockoff. 2006. 88 min.

"The perceptions and reactions of the public to mass murder and serial killing have become inseparable from the orientations of consumerism. The elevation of criminals, psychopaths and murderers to the rank of monster-hero in the iconography of contemporary consumer culture is discussed." [ProQuest]

"Analysis of Fred Molitor and Barry S. Sapolsky's research on the portrayal of women in slasher films refutes their interpretation. They concluded that violence is less frequently targeted against women than men and that there is no link between sex and aggression. However, they do not indicate their reference point for these comparisons. Compared with other genres, slasher films have a higher percentage of female victims. Molitor, Sapolsky and J.B. Weaver's data, read in conjunction with other mass-media research, actually serves to highlight the ways in which slasher films are violent against women." [Magazine Index]

"Research that refuted Daniel Linz and Edward Donnerstein's assertions about women being victimized in slasher films was an effort to empirically verify their claims. The research compared male and female victims and refuted their assertion that women are more often the victims in such movies. In responding to the research, Linz and Donnerstein have suggested the need for a cross-genre comparison. To adopt this new criteria, the comparison film genre needs to be defined. The analysis will be affected by the the kind of films chosen. If the films have few female characters, it will seem like women are disproportionately victimized." [Magazine Index]

"This study investigates gender-specific descriptions and perceptions of slasher films. Sixty Euro-American university students (30 males and 30 females) were asked to recount in a written survey the details of the most memorable slasher film they remember watching and describe the emotional reactions evoked by that film. A text analysis approach was used to examine and interpret informant responses. Males recall a high percentage of descriptive images associated with what is called rural terror, a concept tied to fear of strangers and rural landscapes, whereas females display a greater fear of family terror, which includes themes of betrayed intimacy, stalkings, and spiritual possession. It is found that females report a higher level and a greater number of fear reactions than males, who report more anger and frustration responses. Gender-specific fears as personalized through slasher film recall are discussed with relation to socialization practices and power-control theory. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre scared me to death. It was intensely unpleasant, even though it's a cheap splatter flick about some teenagers who get slaughtered by some deranged lunatics in rural Texas somewhere. I guess the most freaky thing about the movie is all the screaming. The one girl who barely escapes the chainsaw guy screams all throughout the movie. She is terrorized unrelentlessly, and after a series of close calls with the chainsaw she is finally rescued by a trucker. I was drained after seeing that film. The gore and graphic violence made me feel awful, almost guilty, for watching it." [SpringerLink]

UC users only
Author Abstract: A study was conducted to examine the roles that adolescents' attitudes about sexuality and punishment play in their enjoyment of R-rated 'slasher films.' Ninety-six high school students completed a series of attitude questionnaires and rated their perceptions of a videotaped preview of a slasher film that varied the sexuality in the portrayasexual) with the gender of the victim who was killed at the film's conclusion. More permissive sexual attitudes and lower levels of punitiveness were associated with greater enjoyment of frightening films. However, traditional attitudes toward females' sexuality were positively associated with gore-watching motivations (e.g., watching slasher films 'to see the victims get what they deserve'). The manipulations of sexual behavior and gender of victim in the video preview had little effect on ratings of enjoyment overall. However, punitive attitudes toward sexuality were associated with greater overall enjoyment of the previews, and punitiveness was associated with greater enjoyment of the previews featuring sexuality. For male subjects, more traditional attitudes about females' sexuality were associated with greater enjoyment of previews featuring female victims. COPYRIGHT Sage Publications Inc. 1993. [Magazine Index]

Pinedo, Isabel Cristina

"...And Then She Killed Him: Women and Violence in the Slasher Film." In: Recreational terror: women and the pleasures of horror film viewing / Isabel Cristina Pinedo. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997. Series title: SUNY series, Interruptions -- Border testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s.

"The youth horror film: slashers and the supernatural." In: Generation multiplex: the image of youth in contemporary American cinema / by Timothy Shary; foreword by David Considine. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

"The notion of murder as art or aestheticized murder appears to be occurring with increasing frequency in Hollywood film productions. The 1990s marks the emergence of a new cinematic trend where murderers are depicted as semiotically informed people who follow the outline of a pre-established narrative manifest in a shared literature of images and then subsequently process their aesthetically arranged corpses through another layer of reportorial and/or electronic discourse." [Magazine Index]

Trencansky, Sarah.

"Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror." Journal of Popular Film and Television v29, n2 (Summer, 2001):63.

"Discusses the role of heroines and hityouth in slasher films of the 1980s, specifically the "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Friday the 13th," and "Hellraiser" franchises. Focuses on the feminist, mental, and social issues that the heroines and monsters represent. Describes the idea of the hitFinal Girl - the lone female who fights and defeats the main villain - as the champion for overcoming oppression of both men and societal authority, while the monsters are horrible killers that stalk and eliminate members of the same twisted societies that created them. Suggests, ultimately, that the characters in slasher films find the boundaries between themselves and the monsters becoming fluid - they confront the wretched or repressed impulses within themselves as the monster emerges, bridging the gap between upstanding society and its unprivileged monsters." [IIPA]

Author Abstract: Diverse viewpoint have emerged over whether male or female characters edure the brunt of the violence depicted in the subgence of horror movies commonly referred to as "slasher" filsm. In order to address this issue, a content analysis of 10 slasher movies was conducted. Although the data reveal that death and destruction are predominant components of slasher films, there is no evidence of a systematic bias in the appearances of deaths of protagonists as a function of gender. Other content attributes of these films are examined and their implications discussed. COPYRIGHT Broadcast Education Association 1991. [Magazine Index]

Wee, Valerie

"Resurrecting and Updating the Teen Slasher." Journal of Popular Film and Television v. 34 no. 2 (Summer 2006) p. 50-61

"The author examines the Scream trilogy and disputes the perception that the series is conservative and reactionary in its politics. She argues that the films reflect specific 1990s American concerns and contends that the distinctive treatment of the slasher villain and final female survivor reflect a progressive, revolutionary stance." [Art Index]

Welsh, Andrew

"On the Perils of Living Dangerously in the Slasher Horror Film: Gender Differences in the Association Between Sexual Activity and Survival."
Sex Roles; Jun2010, Vol. 62 Issue 11/12, p762, 12p

"The Good, the Bad, and the South Korean : Violence, Morality, and the South Korean Extreme Film." In: Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film / edited by Barry Keith Grant. pp: 307-320. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1984.

"Blair Witch Craft: Mix eye of Heather with a pinch of horror, promote well and serve the film event of '99." (The Arts/Cinema)('The Blair Witch Project') Time v154, n7 (August 16, 1999):58+.

"The Blair Witch Cult: Two young filmmakers have set the summer--and the box office on fire with a creepy tale audiences love or hate. The making, and marketing, of a stealth smash." (Arts and Entertainment) Newsweek v134, n7 (August 16, 1999):44.

"How The Blair Witch Project Built Up So Much Buzz." Fortune v140, n4 (August 16, 1999):32+.

Cowan, Chris J.

"'If You Go Out in the Woods Today...': Approaching The Blair Witch Project as Western Mythology."
49th Parallel: An-Interdisciplinary Journal of North American-Studies,2000 Winter, 4, (no pagination).

Craig, J. Robert. Craig, Tyson S..

"The Phenomenon in Retrospect: Thematic and Stylistic Progenitors of The Blair
Witch Project." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology. 22(1-2):2-10. 2002 Mar

This article discusses the Web site companion to the film 'The Blair Witch Project' and the way in which it has increased interest and misinformation about the film. Topics include the Website's creation of a background mythology for the film, enhancing its believability, and an unfavorable review of the film.

Elias, Justine.

"Making horror horrible again: into a forest full of witchery." (the making of 'The Blair Witch Project') New York Times, sec2 (Sun, July 11, 1999):AR13(N), AR13(L), col 1, 20 col in.

"Compares "hitThe hitBlair hitWitch hitProject," a low-budget, independent horror film directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, and "hitPamela, or Virtue Rewarded," a 1740 epistolary novel written by Samuel Richardson. Describes hitthe ways both creators manipulated hitthe media in a manner that encouraged initial audiences to experience hitthe fictional stories as if they were non-fictional. Discusses similarities within hitthe works themselves, pre-publication strategies for advertising, their narrative structures, and hitthe critical and popular reception of each work." [IIPA]

An analysis is presented on the techniques used to market 'The Blair Witch project', including the strategy of promoting the film as a true story. As of 1999, the movie has the most profitable production cost-to-revenue ratio, making more than $150 mil in the US.

'The Blair Witch Project' follows the story of three student filmmakers who in October 1994 disappeared in the Black Hills Forest, Maryland whilst researching the local Blair Witch legend. The film mirrors the fly-on-the-wall documentary and is made up largely of footage taken by the students. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick are attributed with writing and direction.

Nothing that is : millennial cinema and the Blair witch controversies / edited by Sarah L. Higley and Jeffrey Andr...
Detroit : Wayne State University Press, c2004.
Contemporary approaches to film and television series.

"The writer discusses how The Blair Witch Project, directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, functions as a mock documentary. The film is about three student filmmakers who go missing in the Maryland woods while making a documentary on the myth of the Blair Witch. It uses some transparent strategies to highlight the fabricated nature of documentary representations, such as using young documentary filmmakers as the central protagonists. It tries to guide viewers toward a documentary mode of engagement through its construction of a documentary look: A video recorder is used to create a feeling for viewers that they are watching the story unfold in an unmediated way. In many ways, however, these strategies are heavy-handed and obvious, lacking the subtlety and skillfulness that characterize the same strategies in other mock documentaries. The Blair Witch Project does succeed in moving mock documentary out of the "arthouse" and into the mainstream, but it offers little to challenge documentary proper." [Art Index]

"Television programs about teenagers as extraterrestrials or battling supernatural forces reflect the values and uncertainties many teens experience. The struggle to accept responsibility, alienation, opposing evil, and subtle comedy are significant elements in these shows and in adolescent lives." [Expanded Academic Index]

"Argues that hitthe television series "hitBuffy hitthe hitVampire Slayer" can be understood as a rebel warrior narrative that harkens back to hitthe mythic and historic tradition of hitthe disruptive woman warrior while presenting a 21st century humanitarian and partly androgynous citizen ideal. Analyzes four seasons of hitthe show, focusing on hitthe title character's warrior status, and hither growth and interaction with other characters." [IIPA]

""I Wasn't Planning on Hurting You - Much": Sadomasochism, Melodrama and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Fan Fiction."
Spectator - The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television 25:1 [Spring 2005] p. 48-60

"She's hunting vampires, and on a school night." The New York Times 141 Jul 31 (1992)

Molloy, Patricia

"Demon Diasporas: Confronting the Other and the Other-Worldly in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel." In: To seek out new worlds : science fiction and world politics / edited by Jutta Weldes. 1st Palgrave Macmillan ed. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

"Mary Shelley's 1817 novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus is now widely regarded as one of the founding texts of the science fiction and horror genres. The modern myth it established has been enormously influential across a whole range of media and cultural forms. Here, I want to examine how its story was retold in two of the most successful American television series of the last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first: The X-Files , which ran from 1993 until 2002; and Buffy the Vampire Slayer , which ran from 1997 until 2003. I will focus on particular episodes from each series: 'The Postmodern Prometheus', which first went to air in November 1997, as part of the fifth season of The X-Files ; and the 'Adam' sequence from Buffy 's fourth season, a set of four linked episodes, comprising 'The I in Team', 'Goodbye Iowa', 'The Yoko Factor' and 'Primeval', first broadcast during 2000, on 8 and 15 February and 9 and 16 May, respectively. First, however, I want to say something about the more general characteristics of the two series."

Edited by Roz Kaveney. London ; New York : Tauris Parke Paperbacks ; New York : Distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

MAIN: PN1992.77.B84 R4 2004

Contents: The1.2.3.4.5.6. The7.8.Roz Kaveney --Boyd Tonkin --Roz Kaveney --Karen Sayer --Zoe-Jane Playdon --Justine Larbalestier --Jennifer Stoy --Ian Shuttleworth --Acknowledgements, resources and contributors --regular, recurring or otherwise significant characters --She saved the world. A lot : an introduction to the themes and structures of Buffy and Angel /Entropy as demon : Buffy in Southern California /Writing The Vampire Slayer : interviews with Jane Espenson and Steven S. DeKnight /This was our world and they made it theirs : reading space and place in Buffy the vampire slayer and Angel /What you are, what's to come : feminisms, citizenship and the divine in Buffy /only thing better than killing a slayer : heterosexuality and sex in Buffy the vampire slayer /Blood and choice : the theory and practice of family in Angel /They always mistake me for the character I play! : transformation, identity and role-play in the Buffyverse (and a defence of fine acting) /Episode guide.

"Horror in three dimensions: House of wax and Creature from the Black Lagoon." In:
Ghouls, gimmicks, and gold : horror films and the American movie business, 1953-1968 / Kevin Heffernan.
Durham : Duke University Press, 2004.

"Children of Horror: The Films of Val Lewton." In: Aspects of Fantasy: Selected Essays from the Second International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986. pp: 95-106. Series title: Contributions to Study of Science Fiction & Fantasy 19.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

"Horror in three dimensions: House of wax and Creature from the Black Lagoon." In: Ghouls, gimmicks, and gold : horror films and the American movie business, 1953-1968 Durham : Duke University Press, 2004.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.H45 2004

Hendershot, Cyndy.

"The Bomb and Sexuality: Creature from the Black Lagoon and Revenge of the Creature." Literature and Psychology, 1999, 45:4, 74-89.

Jancovich, Mark.

"The Critique of Maturity: The Films of Jack Arnold." In: Rational fears : American horror in the 1950s
Manchester, UK ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1996.

MAIN: PN1995.9.H6 J37 1996

"This reassessment of 1950s American horror film relates it to the cultural debates of the period and to other examples of the horror genre-novels and comics. Through close analysis of a wide range of films, such as Psycho, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, and Creature From the Black Lagoon, the author argues that horror films of the 1950s developed a critique of conservatism, conformity, mass society, and masculinity. In addition, he contends that, while many critics have seen contemporary horror as the production of a break from that of the 1950s, most of the key elements within recent horror films and novels were established during the 1950s. The book contains the following three parts: "Creatures From Beyond: Rationalism and Resistance in the Invasion Narratives"; "The Outsider Narratives"; and "Resituating Psycho: Paranoid Horror and the Crisis of Identity at the End of the Decade "." [Communication Abstracts]

"Analyzes "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," an American movie from the 1950's, to learn about American approaches to aggression and libido, as well as psychotherapy, myth, and the human psyche. It is concluded that the movie is a metaphor for the process of psychotherapy, in which unconscious forces remain dominant if the Ego attempts to deal with them by forceful repression." [PsychInfo]

McConnell, Frank D.

"Song of innocence: The Creature from the Black Lagoon." In:
The science of fiction and the fiction of science : collected essays on SF storytelling and the gnostic imagination / Frank McConnell ; edited by Gary Westfahl ; foreword by Neil Gaiman.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN3448.S45 M35 2009

Telotte, J.P.

"Making tele-contact: 3-D film and The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Extrapolation 45.3 (Fall 2004): 294(11).

"Initially seen as a novelty item, 3-D cinema of the 1950s has typically been dismissed as a gimmick by critics and historians. Here, Telotte gives a clear understanding of the historical view of 3-D film, using Paul Virilio's recent work on how the cinema and other modern communication technologies have affected people's sense of reality. In addition, by looking at one of the most famous 3-D films, Jack Arnold's The Creature from the Black Lagoon in terms of Virilio's notion of tele-contact, one might better gauge both the appeal and disturbance of 3-D film." [IIPA]

"Ghosts of the Present, Spectres of the Past: The Kaidan and the Haunted Family in the Cinema of Nakata Hideo and Shimizu Takashi." In: Nightmare Japan : contemporary Japanese horror cinema / Jay McRoy.
Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2008.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1995.9.H6 M376 2008

Newman, K.

"Dark Water." Sight & Sound v. ns15 no. 8 (August 2005) p. 50-1

Seet, K. K.

"Mothers and Daughters: Abjection and the Monstrous-Feminine in Japan's Dark Water and South Korea's A Tale of Two Sisters." Camera Obscura, May2009, Vol. 24 Issue 71, preceding p139-159, 24p

""There is only one": the restoration of the repressed in The exorcist: the version you've never seen!" In: Horror film: creating and marketing fear Edited by Steffen Hantke. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.H674 2004

Bowles, Stephen E.

"The Exorcist and Jaws." Literature-Film Quarterly. 4:196-214. 1976.

Cull, Nick.

"The Exorcist." History Today v50, n5 (May, 2000):46.

"Exorcist." The New Yorker v. 49 (January 7 1974) p. 59-62

"Exorcist." Newsweek v. 83 (January 7 1974) p. 60

"Exorcist." Time v. 103 (January 14 1974) p. 38

Jackson, Kevin.

"Satan's Lonely Man." Sight & Sound. 13(5):28-30. 2003 May

Kelly, Allison M.

"A girl's best friend is her mother: the Exorcist as a post-modern oedipal tale." (Critical Essay) A . Journal of Evolutionary Psychology March 2004 v25 i1-2 p64(6) (2730 words)

"The motion picture 'The Exorcist' is considered one of the most terrifying films ever shown. Its debut in 1973 provoked faintings, vomitings, and hysterical terror, thus, was banned on video by the British Board of Film Classification. Producer William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin, however, claim that 'The Exorcist' is a religious film despite its demonic theme as its shows how good or God triumphed over evil." [Magazine Index]

Kinder, Marsha; Houston, Beverle.

"Seeing Is Believing: The Exorcist and Don't Look Now." In: American horrors : essays on the modern American horror film / edited by Gregory A. Waller. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1987.

Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1995.9.H6 A391 1987

Moffitt PN1995.9.H6 A391 1987

PFA PN1995.9.H6 A391 1987

King, Claire Sisco

"Ramblin' Men and Piano Men: Cries of Music and Masculinity in The Exorcist." In: Music in the horror film : listening to fear / edited by Neil Lerner.
New York : Routledge, 2010.

"Return of 'the Exorcist': After 27 years, the film provokes an entirely different set of reactions." America v183, n16 (Nov 18, 2000):6.

Schober, Adrian

"The Lost and Possessed Child in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist and Victor Kelleher's Del-Del."
Papers: Explorations into Children's Literature, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 40-48, August 1999.

"The Friday the 13th Films and the Cultural Function of a Modern Grand Guignol." In: Horror zone : the cultural experience of contemporary horror cinema / edited by Ian Conrich.
London ; New York : I. B. Tauris ; New York : Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

"The author discusses teen slasher films and how their constructs relate to late-20th century family structures. Adults in these films are either absent or useless, so the teen characters must overcome the supernatural killer on their own. As divorce became more common in the second half of the century, the family unit became weaker. In the slasher films of the late 1980s and 90s, the actions of the parents are what put the children at risk. The survivor characters, the teens who see their friends killed throughout the movie, possess similar traits: they are smart and quick-thinking as well as caring. Several hithorror movies, such as the "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, are discussed." [IIPA]

Trencansky, Sarah.

"Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror." Journal of Popular Film and Television v29, n2 (Summer, 2001):63.

"Discusses the role of heroines and hityouth in slasher films of the 1980s, specifically the "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Friday the 13th," and "Hellraiser" franchises. Focuses on the feminist, mental, and social issues that the heroines and monsters represent. Describes the idea of the hitFinal Girl - the lone female who fights and defeats the main villain - as the champion for overcoming oppression of both men and societal authority, while the monsters are horrible killers that stalk and eliminate members of the same twisted societies that created them. Suggests, ultimately, that the characters in slasher films find the boundaries between themselves and the monsters becoming fluid - they confront the wretched or repressed impulses within themselves as the monster emerges, bridging the gap between upstanding society and its unprivileged monsters." [IIPA]

Examines the cultural valence of the movie 'Godzilla' in the United States. Negativity within the 'Godzilla' fandom; Use of a special-effects technique in the creation of the film; Contradiction within Godzilla.

The article discusses the creation of "Godzilla" films by Japanese film directors such as Tomoyuki Tanaka and Ishirô Honda in the aftermath of the U.S. atomic bombing on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. The author of the article asserts that the "Godzilla" series represents the Japanese people attempting to rebuild their cities and culture with the threat of radioactive fallout from the bombings.

"Changes in Japanese science fiction films and comics (manga) reflect Japan's changing post-war image of itself. Although scientific and technological progress have been key to Japan's economic success, most Japanese science fiction suggests ambivalence and fear of disaster. These films have progressed from 'secure' disaster scenarios of the 'Godzilla' series to nostalgic views of unavoidable disaster, as in the film 'Nippon chinbotsu,' and finally to nihilistic visions of a grim future in the 1989 film 'Akira.'" [Expanded Academic Index]

Also in:

Contemporary Japan and popular culture / edited by John Whittier Treat. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.

Main Stack DS822.5.C69 1996

Naoto, Sudo.

"Nanyo-orientalism in postwar Japanese texts on the Pacific: From Dankichi and Godzilla to Macias Gilly." In:
Nanyo-orientalism : Japanese representations of the Pacific / Naoto Sudo.
Amherst, N.Y. : Cambria Press, c2010.

"Godzilla and the Japanese nightmare: when Them! is U.S." In: Hibakusha cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the nuclear image in Japanese film / edited by Mick Broderick. London: New York: Kegan Paul International; New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996. Japanese studies.

Main Stack PN1993.5.J3.H53 1996

Reichert, Jim

"Godzilla, The Monster Made in Japan."
PAJLS: Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, vol. 3, pp. 63-69, 2002 Summer

The article provides a historical perspective on how the original film "Gojira" became "Godzilla, King of the Monsters." The story of how Gojira became Godzilla is a tale of two countries and two cheesy movies. This story involves racism, the atomic bombing of Japan and the testing of the hydrogen bombs and the resulting radioactive pollution. The transformation of Gojira to Godzilla is also a tale of the collision of politics, art and commerce. Gojira, released in 1954, was the original kaiju eiga (the Japanese phrase for "monster movie").

Shapiro traces the evolution of Atomic Bomb Cinema in U.S. and Japanese films from the 1950s and '60s. Utilizing the theories of Erik Erikson, John Collins, and Eric Cassell, this essay interprets Atomic Bomb Cinema through the lenses of crisis, apocalypse, and suffering. After contextualizing the films in relation to The Time Machine, the essay analyzes four films, On the Beach, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Mosura tai Gojira, and Ikimono no Kiroku.

Shuk-Ting Yau S

"From Godzilla to Train Man -- A Study of the Japanese Self Image in the Context of the West." Asian Profile; Feb2009, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p17, 10p

The article explores the development of self-image among the Japanese people and the depiction of such self-image in the films "Godzilla" and "Train Man." An explanation of George Herbert Mead's theory of self, and its relation to the structure of the Japanese self, is offered. How the Japanese showed their sense of inferiority since the late 19th century is described. According to the author, the sense of inferiority displayed by the Japanese is the factor that associates "Godzilla" with "Train Man." He argues that a detailed analysis of the films will reveal the connection between their characters, specifically their sense of inferiority.

"Nanyo-Orientalism in Postwar Japanese Texts on the Pacific: From Dankichi and Godzilla to Macias Gilly." New Literatures Review. 41: 105-19. 2004 Apr.

Tanaka, Yuki

"Godzilla and the bravo shot: who created and killed the monster?" In: Filling the hole in the nuclear future : art and popular culture respond to the bomb / edited by Robert Jacobs.

Main (Gardner) Stacks NX180.S6 F55 2010

Tsutsui, William.

Godzilla on my mind: fifty years of the king of monsters
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

PFA PN1995.9.G63.T78 2004

Tsutsui, William.

"Through the Years with Godzilla and Tora-San: Film Series in Postwar Japan." In: The legend returns and dies harder another day : essays on film series / edited by Jennifer Forrest.
Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, c2008.

"Godzilla and his progeny: why American children like Japanese monsters." South Carolina Review Spring 2004 v36 i2 p154-158

"Godzilla movie made its debut in the United States where quickly attracted countless American fans, especially children and teenagers. The American children are fascinated by Japanese monsters because of their relationship with monsters, where their hopes are fulfilled and fears worked out." [Expanded Academic Index]

"Oriental Nightmares: The 'Demonic' Other in Contemporary American Adaptations of Japanese Horror Film." In: Something wicked this way comes : essays on evil and human wickedness / edited by Colette Balmain an
Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2009.

Main (Gardner) Stacks BJ1401 .S64 2009

Cameron, Sarah

"Japanese Horror Cinema: Real and Imagined Folklore and Representations of Women in Ju-on: The Grudge and Ring."
Contemporary Legend: The Journal of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, vol. 8, pp. 67-93, 2005

"Ghosts of the Present, Spectres of the Past: The Kaidan and the Haunted Family in the Cinema of Nakata Hideo and Shimizu Takashi." In: Nightmare Japan : contemporary Japanese horror cinema / Jay McRoy.
Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2008.

"The haunting and the power of suggestion : why Robert Wise's film continues to "deliver the goods" to modern audiences." In: The horror film reader / edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini.
New York : Limelight Editions, 2000.

Main (Gardner) Stacks & PFA PN1995.9.H6 H68 2000

PFA PN1995.9.H6 H68 2000)

Schneider, Steven Jay

"Thrice-Told Tales: 'The Haunting,' from Novel to Film ... to Film." Journal of Popular Film & Television 30:3 [Fall 2002] p.166-176

A film director details the reasons for his attraction to horror movies. He believes that a movie's capacity to instill fear and horror in the hearts and minds of viewers depends on the art of story telling through motion picture. He narrates the reasons for his liking Robert Wise's adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' into the movie 'The Haunting.'.

"Monster at the Soda Shop: Teenagers and Fifties Horror Films." In: I was a Cold War monster : horror films, eroticism, and the Cold War imagination / Cyndy Hendershot. Bowling Green, OH : Bowling Green State University Popular Press, c2001.

"Teenagers and the Independents." In: Rational fears : American horror in the 1950s
Manchester, UK ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, 1996.

MAIN: PN1995.9.H6 J37 1996

Metz, Walter.

""I was a teenage Messiah": Powder and its 1950s intertexts." Engaging film criticism: film history and contemporary American Film. New York : P. Lang, c2004.

The article examines the construction and erasure of racial difference in films featuring the Creature, particularly "The Creature Walks Among Us" and "Monster on Campus." Similar to King Kong, the Creature is an ethnographic monster whose main purpose is to concretize racial difference. In John Sherwood's "The Creature Walks Among Us," conflicts about race and gender in the first two films are made explicit in many ways that are both problematic and promising. While the film challenges the evolutionary hierarchy of the rape narrative, "Monster on Campus" appears to support it in overstated terms.

Greenberg, Harvey Roy.

"King Kong: The Beast in the Boudoir; or, 'You Can't Marry That Girl, You're a
Gorilla!'" In: The dread of difference: gender and the horror film / edited by Barry Keith Grant. 1st ed. pp: 338-51. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Texas film studies series.

"O'Brien and Monsters from the Id." In: The Scope of the Fantastic--Culture, Biography, Themes, Children's Literature: selected essays from the First International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film / edited by Robert A. Collins and Howard. pp: 205-217.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. Series title: Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy no. 11.

"Spectatorship and Capture in King Kong: The Guilty Look." In: Representing Blackness : issues in film and video / edited with an introduction by Valerie Smith.
New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1997

"Transatlantic Perspectives on Men, Women, and Other Primates: The Ape Motif in Kafka, Canetti, and Cooper's and Jackson's King Kong Films."
Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature and Culture, vol. 23, pp. 156-178, 2007

"This article considers the ways in which a range of films (made between 1957 and 1974) by British director Terence Fisher represented Europe in general, and Transylvania in particular. Fisher was able to take advantage of laisser-faire managerial conditions at Hammer in the 1950s, and the studio itself profited from the economic and legislative changes in 1950s British cinema. Fisher was able to gain a modicum of control over the scripting and editing processes, and, because he shared the aesthetic approach of his art director Bernard Robinson, was able to make a series of films which had the same visual style and approach to cinematic and geographical space. Fisher's Transylvania films worked by stripping the protagonists' demeanour bare, and by using irony and disavowal as a means of presenting an imaginary country where the audience's national, social and sexual fears could be safely explored."

Examines the phenomenon of the cult film and the characteristics of the audiences of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Suggests that the preparation, waiting, and finally the active participation in the viewing of the film itself appear to be part of a group ritual which characterizes the cult film as an event.

"The role of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the movie 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' is analogous to that of the Greek god Dionysus in Euripides 'The Bacchae.' The movie is a postmodern, gay version of the play, whose portrayal of Dionysus emphasizes three main attributes of his character. Music for him is chaotic and sensual, he is prone to making grand and commanding entrances, and he dies despite being immortal. The movie infuses the character of Dr. Frank N. Furter with these traits to rebel against the institutions prevailing in its time, simultaneously embracing gay subculture and admitting its instability." [Expanded Academic Index]

"Masculinity and Deviance in British Cinema of the 1970s: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll in The Wicker Man, Tommy, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show." In: Don't look now : British cinema in the 1970s / edited by Paul Newland.
Bristol, UK ; Chicago, USA : Intellect, 2010.

"Sexuality and Identity in The Rocky Horror Picture Show." In: Eros in the mind's eye : sexuality and the fantastic in art and film / edited by Donald Palumbo.
Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, c1986. Series Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy, no. 21

This article provides a sociological reading of cult films, in particular, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Cult films are secular documents, celebrated as sacred texts by audiences and used as shared foci to collectively create rituals and belief systems. They differ from popular re-releases, fad films, films with cult qualities, and critical cult films in that they involve typical people in atypical situations, sympathetic deviance, challenges to traditional authority, reflections of societal strains, and paradoxical and interpretable resolutions. Examination of the Rocky Horror text and the cult activities that occur during its viewing, reveal it as a paradoxical indictment and validation of traditional societal arrangements.

Henkin, Bill.

The Rocky Horror picture show book New York, N.Y. : Plume, 1990, c1979.

PFA : PN1997.R635 H4 1990

Magistrale, T.

"Terror parodies: The wicker man, The Rocky Horror picture show, Young Frankenstein, The lost boys, Scream, Scary movie." In: Abject terrors : surveying the modern and postmodern horror film New York : Peter Lang, c2005.

"Lou Adler's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Stephan Elliott's Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) share an obsession with the fetish, and both locate the fetish on the desiring body of the male. This essay uses psychoanalytic film theory to explore these renderings of the fetish and argues that the films deploy radically different economies of desire; the fetish in Rocky Horror is grounded in a sadistic masculinity, while in Priscilla, the fetish serves as a referent for a masochistic, even utopian principle of 'being'. However, while the political values that the two films give to the fetish as spectacle are quite different, as are the grounding aesthetics and the space allowed to women, ultimately, both films remain unable to enact a sustained, strategic, and comprehensive resistance to traditional, fixed cinematic renderings of gender for women."

"Oriental Nightmares: The 'Demonic' Other in Contemporary American Adaptations of Japanese Horror Film."
In: Something Wicked This Way Comes: Essays on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 209 pp.

Main (Gardner) Stacks BJ1401 .S64 2009

Cameron, Sarah

"Japanese Horror Cinema: Real and Imagined Folklore and Representations of Women in Ju-on: The Grudge and Ring."
Contemporary Legend: The Journal of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, vol. 8, pp. 67-93, 2005

Goldberg, Ruth.

"Demons in the Family: Tracking the Japanese 'Uncanny Mother Film' from A Page of Madness to Ringu." In: Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film / edited by Barry Keith Grant. pp: 307-320. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1984.

Main Stack PN1995.9.H6.P56 1984

Moffitt PN1995.9.H6.P56 1984)

Hogle, Jerrold E.

"Hyper-Reality and the Gothic Affect: The Sublimation of Fear from Burke and Walpole to The Ring"
English Language Notes, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 163-176, 2010 Spring-Summer

Iles, Timothy.

"The Problem of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Horror Films." electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies 6 October 2005

The article discusses the cultural globalization aspect of the Hollywood's remake of various East Asian films. It assessed the cultural authenticity of three film remakes such as "The Ring" in 2002, "Shall We Dance" in 2004, and "The Departed" in 2006. It mentions how the Hollywood film industry continues to exert technological and economic pressure on the movie industry of other countries. Moreover, it presents the impact of cultural diffusion on the future of East Asian films.

The article the presents the criticism on the 1975 film "The Stepford Wives." It says that the film presents masculine supremacy and other forms of exploitation from crucial elements of technological science. It also mentions that the film shows how metaphors of gendered struggle and violence are dependent on the representations of technological science and explains dystopianism in the context of technological science and gender relations.

Lim, Bliss C.

"Serial Time: Bluebeard in Stepford." In: Literature and film : a guide to the theory and practice of film adaptation / edited by Robert Stam, Alessandra Raengo. Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2005.

"The Return of the Return of the Repressed! Risen from the grave and brought back to bloody life: horror remakes from Psycho to Funny Games."
Film Comment v. 44 no. 2 (March/April 2008) p. 24-8

The writer discusses a number of horror film remakes: Gus Van Sant's 1999 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Marcus Nispel's 2003 version of Tobe Hooper'sTexas Chainsaw Massacre, Alexandre Aja's 2006 remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes, Rob Zombie's 2007 version of John Carpenter's Halloween, and Michael Haneke's 2008 remake of his own Funny Games.

Looking back at three films (The Night of the Hunter, House, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this essay proposes a new way to read horror politically, moving away from allegories of “horrible content” in favor of an attention to the horrors of form and how “secondary” background details assert themselves.

Williams, Tony.

"Chainsaw Massacres: The Apocalyptic Dimension." In: Hearths of darkness: the family in the American horror film / Tony Williams. Madison [New Jersey]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c1996.

"Masculinity and Deviance in British Cinema of the 1970s: Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll in The Wicker Man, Tommy, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show." In: Don't look now : British cinema in the 1970s / edited by Paul Newland.
Bristol, UK ; Chicago, USA : Intellect, 2010.

"Twilight of the Monsters: British Horror Film, 1968-1975." In: Re-viewing British cinema, 1900-1992 : essays and interviews / edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon.
Albany : State University of New York Press, c1994.